In the News
Barbara Johns statue unveiled at U.S. Capitol
By Matthew McWilliams
In The Farmville Herald
Dignitaries from across the country joined together in the U.S. Capitol to honor the heroic actions of Barbara Rose Johns and to install a bronze sculpture in the Capitol Statuary Hall Collection of the teenager who led a historic student strike in 1951 in protest of segregated school conditions.
Visitors — including more than 200 members of the Johns family — packed into Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol Tuesday for the statue’s unveiling and dedication. Speakers included: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson; the Rev. L. Francis “Skip” Griffin; Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries; Terry Harrison, daughter of Barbara Johns; Joan Johns Cobbs, sister of Barbara Johns; Robert Johns, brother of Barbara Johns; Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; Rep. Bobby Scott and Sen. Mark Warner.
The ceremony was energetic and soaring as speakers reminded the audience of the power of one person to change the course of American history, and the legacy of the Moton strike in ending segregation in American schools. Music provided by the Eastern Senior High School Choir added the pageantry of the dedication.
House Speaker Johnson, R-LA, opened the dedication and unveiling.“Barbara’s now famous walkout from her school in Farmville, Virginia, symbolizes something profoundly American: the power of the individual,” Johnson said. “In Barbara, a farmer’s daughter from humble means, we see an ordinary citizen who challenged the injustices of her day, whose actions drew this nation a little closer to her founding ideals.”
House Minority Leader Jeffries, D-NY, expressed pride in the fact that Johns was born in New York, but moved with her family as a young child to Prince Edward County.
“The school walkout that Barbara led on April 23, 1951, sparked the school desegregation movement that ultimately culminated in the landmark Brown v. Board decision,” Jeffries said. “Of the five cases that made it up to the Supreme Court, the Virginia case was the only one that emerged from a student-led movement. That’s Black history. That’s American history.”
He said it’s appropriate and important to elevate transformational trailblazers like Barbara Rose Johns.
“A story as powerful, a story as moving, and with this honor, a story that will never be erased. This statue of her will now stand in the Capitol, joining Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and other iconic heroes, depicting her call to action as a reminder of the progress that we have made in this great country, and the work, of course, we must continue to do.”
Johns’ daughter, Terry Harrison, shared some about her mother.
“We knew her as Barbara Powell: minister’s wife, mother, librarian. But the core of who she was as a 16-year-old remained, Harrison said. “She put God first in her life. She was brave, bold, determined, strong, wise, unselfish, warm and loving.”
She told the crowd gathered at the Capitol that her mother led by example, inspired, motivated, guided, encouraged and championed family, friends and strangers.
“We are truly grateful that this magnificent monument to her story, the sacrifices that her family and her community made, may continue to inspire and teach others that no matter what, you too can reach for the moon,” Harrison said.
Johns’ sister, Joan Johns Cobbs, quoted from a diary entry that her sister, Barbara, left after she died, where she reflected on the strike.
“There were times where I prayed: God please grant us a new school. Please let us have a warm place to study where we don’t have to keep our coats on all day to stay warm. God please help us, we are your children too,” Cobbs said as she read from the diary.
L. Francis “Skip” Griffin Jr., son of the Johns’ family pastor in the 1950s. the Rev. Francis Griffin, delivered the invocation at the ceremony.
“We place a statue appropriately here today where [Barbara] will be among other pioneering Americans…let us be reminded of the deeply prophetic that moved in Barbara’s soul that inspired her at the age of 16 to lead fellow Moton students to take one giant step to move this nation toward a more perfect union,” Griffin said.
Members of Virginia’s Congressional delegation attended the dedication, with Sen. Warner, D-VA, and Rep. Scott, D-VA, delivering remarks honoring Johns.
“Her courage forced this country to reckon with its conscience on a scale much larger than she ever could have imagined,” Warner said. “I’m proud to unveil Barbara Johns’ statue in the U.S. Capitol where she will represent the Commonwealth of Virginia and be recognized for the vital role she played in ending school segregation.”
Scott said that at the age of 16, Barbara Johns’ refused to accept inequality in our public schools.
“Her determination led to the lawsuit Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, which ultimately became part of the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,” Scott said. “Her strength and unwavering belief in equality and justice helped change the entire nation for the better. It is hard to think of a better example of a Virginian to represent the Commonwealth in the United States Capitol,” said Rep. Bobby Scott.
Under federal law, each state is represented by two statues in National Statuary Hall, selected by the state to honor notable individuals from its history. The Johns statue was recommended by Virginia’s Commission for Historical Statues to replace Virginia’s statue of Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Capitol.
Warner and Scott were both cosponsors of the Confederate Monument Removal Act, legislation to remove statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America from display in National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. Warner has spoken publicly about the need to remove public symbols honoring the Confederacy as part of broader efforts to advance racial justice.
As governor, Warner helped establish a commission to build a monument on Capitol Square honoring Johns, after his youngest daughter asked why the grounds did not include more diverse representation of famous Virginians.
Current Gov. Youngkin told the audience that one can’t tell the story of how the nation struggled against, and then overcame, segregation without telling the story of the Moton school strike, organized and led by Johns.
“It’s fitting that we gather today in Emancipation Hall to dedicate a statue and to tell the story of someone whose courage changed the course of American history, whose life sparked the beginning of a new birth of freedom for so many of our fellow citizens,” Youngkin said.
Throughout this Capitol in the crypt where her statue will stand, he said there are men and women remembered in bronze and in marble who when we see them we are reminded of their courage, their achievement, the importance of that life.
“And the lessons from the lives and legacies of American heroes like Barbara Johns are never confined to the past,” Youngkin said. “They continue to inspire us every moment of the present day, and it is critically important that we bring them forward into the future.”
The governor concluded by noting that Johns’ actions led way to change that benefited everyone.
“Barbara Johns’ courage and example was all in service. Service of a noble mission to ensure that all Americans would receive an excellent education,” Youngkin said. “This statue is a fitting memorial and tribute to a teenager in Virginia who became an American hero. A hero whose courage inspired a nation to overcome injustice and to more fully realize our founding promise as a nation. And now this fitting memorial has a fitting home.”
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Gang of Eight member unsure about US goal in Venezuela: ‘I do not know’
By Max Rego
In The Hill
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is unsure about what President Trump’s endgame is in Venezuela, but he certainly does not want troops on the ground.
“I do not know what this president’s goal vis-a-vis Venezuela is,” Warner told host Martha Raddatz on ABC News’s “This Week.”
Warner, a member of the Gang of Eight — comprising the House and Senate leaders of both parties and the top GOP and Democratic members of the Intelligence committees — said he has not been briefed on the Trump administration’s intentions with regard to the South American country.
The Pentagon has amassed a significant presence in the U.S. Southern Command region, while the president has authorized at least 22 strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 87 suspected “narco-terrorists.”
The U.S. also seized an oil tanker en route to Cuba off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday. The vessel was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2022 and was believed to be carrying more than 1 million barrels.
The moves have ramped up tensions with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom administration officials have dubbed an “illegitimate leader” at the head of a drug-trafficking terrorist network.
Last Thursday, President Trump pointed to various reasons for the escalation, including concerns over migration from Venezuela into the U.S.
Warner, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that while the Maduro regime “has been brutal to the Venezuelan people,” the administration’s actions in the region risk dragging the U.S. into an unnecessary conflict.
He also called for the administration to come to Congress and clarify its intentions in Venezuela, specifically regarding whether it intends to topple Maduro. Administration officials, including Trump, have said the Venezuelan strongman’s days are “numbered.”
“I’m not sure where [Trump is] headed here,” the Virginia Democrat added. “I do fear that boots on the ground in Venezuela could be a disaster.”
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The Washington Post: Mark Warner Says Spy Agency Visit Canceled Over Posts by Laura Loomer
Nov 03 2025
Mark Warner says spy agency visit canceled over posts by Laura Loomer
By Noah Robertson and Warren P. Strobel
In The Washington Post
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said he was blocked from a planned visit to a major U.S. spy agency as part of his routine congressional oversight duties after a series of social media posts by Laura Loomer, the far-right activist and provocateur.
“This is the kind of thing that happens in authoritarian regimes,” Warner told a small group of reporters Wednesday morning, referencing the canceled visit and purge this year of intelligence officials.
The visit, he said, had been scheduled for weeks and would have been one of the dozen or so trips he’d taken to U.S. intelligence agencies in the past. NGA, like many other intelligence outfits, is headquartered in Virginia, his home state.
It wasn’t the agency’s leadership that canceled the visit, though, but instead Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office, Warner said. The trip had been classified, he said, which means whoever shared it with Loomer — who does not hold a job in the administration — leaked the information.
“How did a trolling blogger get access that there was a classified meeting going on?” Warner said.
An NGA spokeswoman declined to comment on why Warner’s visit was canceled. A Defense Department spokesperson declined to comment on the record.
For a decade, Warner has been a member of the committee’s leadership, in which he and a select group of other lawmakers in the House and the Senate exercise legislative oversight of America’s vast intelligence apparatus and its top-secret work.
“Is congressional oversight dead? Is congressional power of the purse dead? Those are fair questions to ask,” Warner said.
He and other Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern that constitutional checks are rapidly eroding under President Donald Trump and have complained to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard about what they say is a failure to inform them of key developments.
Trump and Gabbard have repeatedly fired or reassigned U.S. intelligence officials they deem disloyal or who have presented intelligence analysis at odds with the White House’s views. Those moves are politicizing the ranks of intelligence agencies and increase the danger that the Trump administration will not receive, or heed, vital warnings of threats, former U.S. officials say.
Loomer claimed credit for the aborted visit Tuesday night with a social media post on X. She first posted about the subject over the weekend, attacking Navy Vice Adm. Frank “Trey” Whitworth, the NGA’s director, for agreeing to host Warner and questioning why Whitworth, who assumed his post under President Joe Biden, hadn’t been fired.
“Clearly, a lot of Deep State actors are being given a pass in the Intel community to continue their efforts to sabotage Trump under the Trump admin,” Loomer wrote.
Since Trump took office, Loomer has called for a purge of civil servants and political appointees — many in national security roles — whom she has accused of having insufficient loyalty to the president, at times playing a central role in their ouster. Her campaign has extended even to officials who served in the first Trump administration, or who were recently tapped for top jobs in this one.
Even meeting with a Democrat who has jurisdiction over these agencies can be considered an act of disloyalty. Warner said his office was told that the visit was canceled in part because it wasn’t bipartisan, but he doubted that his Republican colleagues would have been prevented from similar trips.
He planned to raise the issue with GOP colleagues — including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (Arkansas) — in the coming days, urging them to preserve norms that lawmakers will want in future administrations.
Cotton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
“If you’re not worried as a Republican senator that this kind of same litmus test wouldn’t apply to you, then I think you’re missing the picture,” Warner said.
Among those whom Gabbard stripped of their clearances last month was Maher Bitar, national security adviser for Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California). Bitar previously worked for Schiff when he chaired the House Intelligence Committee. Trump has long targeted Schiff for his role in the president’s first impeachment.
The House and Senate intelligence committees were established in the 1970s to strengthen congressional oversight of secretive spy agencies following the revelation of a series of abuses by the CIA, the NSA and the FBI. By law, the intelligence agencies must inform the committees about their operations and the CIA must report any covert actions it undertakes.
Senator Warner Talks Trump, Shutdown, and Democracy in Crisis
By
American democracy is in retreat. Or as Senator Mark Warner told me last week, “There is a shock and awe component to this, as soon as you mount an opposition to one area, they take a shot somewhere else.”
He’s not wrong. The examples are becoming too numerous, too disparate, to isolate any one incident as the singular cause. Masked ICE raids. Military deployments in major cities. Corruption, the targeting of political opponents, media capitulation, attacks on academic freedom, even the destruction of the East Wing of the White House. The guardrails preventing these abuses are being hollowed out, overloaded, and dismantled in the ten short months since the president’s taken office.
“The conversations are much different now than they were even in the summer,” Warner told me, as alarm replaces disbelief among people who thought American institutions could survive their own dysfunction.
Meanwhile, all of this is unfolding under a government shutdown that has now entered into its 29th day, something Warner called “imminently resolvable” if the president were willing to actually negotiate. Instead, millions of Americans will lose food security, and 400,000 Virginians will see rising health-care premiums as Affordable Care Act subsidies expire.
But at its core, this isn’t really about political gridlock. It’s the symptom of a deeper anxiety, an unease that’s come to define American life in 2025, as democracy gives way to creeping authoritarianism. Something we spoke about extensively—the damage that’s already been done, and whether it can ever be undone.
Senator Warner, how are you?
[Laughing] Is that a polite question or a real question?
I think I’m trying to be polite while getting to the real.
Yeah, it’s pretty rough. Nothing in politics is normal at this point, right? Even beyond the government shutdown. Laws, norms, and barriers are broken every day. Like the slow-boiling frog, and I’m hugely concerned because I don’t know how some of this stuff gets put back together again with future administrations, Democrat or other.
From my perspective, it feels like we’re living through a generational moment. The list is exhaustive—masked ICE raids, National Guard deployments, blatant corruption, the targeting of political opponents. They’re even tearing down the East Wing of the White House.
The only piece of good news I’ve felt in the last 60 days is the fact that, unlike virtually every other institution, when the military leadership was brought to Quantico, they remained passive. I thought that was an incredibly important signal that they’re going to still value their loyalty to the Constitution. That’s really important.
I fear you’re starting to see with the number of military leaders that have been fired on the active-duty side and, frankly, I’ve seen it much more in the intelligence community—the NSA (National Security Agency) and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). It’s troubling to understand.
How worried are you about the preservation of democracy right now? Because you brought up Quantico, but the president did stand up there and say “America is under invasion from within.” Which is chilling.
It is absolutely chilling. One of the most heartbreaking conclusions I’ve reached, as we’ve seen in the national security domain, people being fired for not changing an intelligence conclusion to meet the president’s needs, people undercover being exposed, and people being given loyalty tests inside of the IC [intelligence community].
I have a lot of Republican friends who I know love our country. I love our country. And they’ll say, you’re right Mark, you have your conscience. I don’t want to be their conscience. Neither party has a monopoly on truth, but you’ve got to work together.
I’ve been part of every bipartisan gang for the last ten years. But I don’t believe, at lest in the immediate future, that my Republican colleagues are going to stand up to Trump. So that means the political systems, normal guardrails, aren’t going to be where the pushback comes from.
For instance, if suddenly there is martial law, if troops are brought to 15 cities all at once, I don’t think the political guardrails are going to hold. I really think it’s going to have to be the leadership of civil society. Whether we’re talking about former military, law enforcement, business, or media—name the domain. They’re going to have to have a level of confidence that if they stand up, others will too.
I’ve had lots of conversations with extremely significant leaders in all these areas; there’s huge fear of retribution. I’ve talked to some of the biggest tech leaders in America. They’re all concerned about trying to do anything individually.
We are seeing some push back. But they [the administration] are overloading the system. There is a shock and awe component to this, as soon as you mount an opposition to one area, they take a shot somewhere else. The conversations are much different now than they were even in the summer.
I want to ask about the A word—authoritarianism. It’s really starting to become more present in our political lexicon. Do you believe we’re on that pathway and how should Virginians understand this?
That’s a great and fair question. I think we are, unfortunately, moving in that direction. And to a certain degree, the president’s not hiding it. One thing you ought to give Donald Trump credit for, he doesn’t hide his cards, right?
Seven million Americans just peacefully protested with American flags. I went to the one in Woodstock, then I saw a video of him [Trump] flying a fighter jet and pooping on the American people. It’s just kind of insane. I don’t want to go over the top in public, but when I’m having private conversations most people haven’t heard the whole litany. When they do hear, they kind of go “oh my god.”
I’ll give you an example, something I will mention but I can’t get into a whole lot of detail. There’s an effort going on by a number of data scientists, kind of in the bowels of government, who are afraid of the data being either manipulated or corrupted. Starting in the summer, they’ve been trying to get data out to locations in Europe so it can be kept safe.
They’re operating on a model that universities in Eastern Europe used to keep their knowledge safe during communism. That shows a level of fear from people. I’ve never heard of anything like that in my 25 years of politics.
I think Virginians feel it more because we’ve got such a large federal presence. And obviously, we need to get the government shutdown done.
How is this impacted by the government shutdown?
So many federal workers feel like they’ve been under assault since day one. They feel disrespected continuously, and there’s just an arbitrariness, particularly to Russ Vought’s actions at the OMB (Office of Management and Budget).
I don’t think there’s any solution set that can be reached by just Congressional Democrats and Republicans. The president has to be involved. Nothing will get done without the president’s active involvement, and the president’s going off for a week to Asia while the government is shut down.
Starting today in Virginia, all the notices go out on health care, and he’s just ignoring this. So again, its unprecedented. The president’s met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy [Ukrainian President] more than he’s met with Democratic leaders and Congress.
Senator, taking the shutdown in totality. Polling suggests that Americans are assigning blame to Congressional Republicans. How are they justifying their position? Because from the outside it seems like the only strategy, quite frankly, is just a strategy of cruelty. What are your Republican colleagues hoping to achieve from this?
They basically said, we did our job through the Continuing Resolution. And I accept that I’ve seen the same polls. Affordability was already the dominant issue of our time, but I think people, very soon, are basically going to say: “screw it, pox on both your houses.” This just needs to be resolved and I think it is imminently resolvable.
You can do a year on health-care credits and then have a plan to deal with reforms. If they can actually show there are huge abuses in the premium supports, I’ll look at reform. But there’s another thing that’s overriding this and making it more difficult—this is kind of in the weeds, but you shake hands, cut a deal, and pass a law and then you still have Russ Vought [OMB Director] picking and choosing which programs to fund. There’s just so little trust.
And again, that’s part of what’s amazed me. The fact they’re [Republicans] ceding all their power is unprecedented. You spend your whole life trying to become appropriations chair, why would you allow your position to be totally eviscerated?
Can I ask you a philosophical question, because you just articulated something that’s been on my mind. How have serious politicians made the moral choice to label one half of this country terrorists, radicals, communists, or whatever? Is it just about the acquisition of power, is that worth the moral compromise to support the direction this is leading?
I don’t have a good answer for that. I do know that they’re hugely uncomfortable; the president has never had this much power over his own party. But I’m also trying to be fair, because I don’t think I fully appreciated how distraught, angry, and frustrated a lot of Republicans were under President Biden.
That period was the height of cancel culture, political correctness, I’m trying as much as possible to put myself in the other guy’s shoes. I’m not saying that’s fair or that we should upend the Constitution or break laws as a result, but in retrospect, there were lots of mistakes made. I’m not going to discount the fervor of their feelings.
It is a bit of a baby-with-the bath water scenario. How do you ultimately see this ending?
The president’s riding high on the Gaza issue. He takes great pride, obviously, in being a deal-maker. I think if we could have a couple sessions with him this could get resolved. It’s not so terribly intractable.
The other thing beyond the immediacy of the shutdown that’s at play right now, which will be hugely disruptive, is the way AI is powering its way into the economy. The post-college, entry-level jobs are where the biggest transformation and disruption will happen. We’re already at nine-percent recent college-grad unemployment. I think that could go to 20 or 25 percent within the next 18 months.
All of those first jobs when you come out [of college] with a finance or accounting degree from University of Richmond or James Madison, those are the first ones on the chopping block. So you’ve got this combination of overall affordability, but there could also be dramatic dislocation. I’m not saying this as an AI doom guy because there might be new jobs created in five or ten years from now. But there’s going to be this gap. Mixed with all of this disruption within our political system, and that’s a witch’s brew that could be pretty game-changing.
Senator, I know we’re coming up on time, but I want to ask two more things: Axios reported on Monday that there’s a GSA (General Services Administration) contract pending for an ICE office in Richmond. Are you worried Virginia is going to be targeted next?
I don’t know enough about the ICE office in Richmond. You know, one of the stunning facts that hasn’t got much attention, but is kind of like a “holy heck” moment it used to take six to eight months to become trained as an ICE agent.
The new hiring program is just 47 days. And you might ask, what’s the magic of 47 days? Well, Trump’s the 47th president. That’s inside baseball, but jaw dropping.
The second question, as the Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, are you worried that as America turns inward and focuses resources on ICE and National Guard deployments that we’re losing focus on the very real threats from our adversaries abroad like Russia, China, and Iran?
Absolutely! And the best evidence of that is ICE now has a budget bigger than the FBI. Every FBI field office, including Richmond and Norfolk, anywhere between 25 and 45 percent of the agents working on counter-terrorism, espionage, cyber, and even child exploitation have all been taken off those cases and moved to immigration.
And we’re hearing from them that they want to get back to their cases. Instead, they’re picking up mom’s who are dropping their kids off at school or people going to work. Is that more important than making sure we keep our eyes focused on our adversaries, or even more serious, the potential threat from terrorists?
I think it’s a misallocation of resources.
Thank you for your time Senator, I hope to chat again soon.
Thank you. I appreciate the seriousness of your questions.
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Democrats Condemn Trump Administration for Secrecy on Boat Strikes
Julian E. Barnes, Robert Jimison and Megan Mineiro
In The New York Times
Democratic lawmakers criticized the Trump administration on Thursday for failing to share details of its targeting plans against purported drug traffickers or the legal arguments for destroying what it claims are smuggling boats.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration’s decision to exclude his party from a secret briefing on Wednesday about the campaign was “corrosive to our democracy.”
Frustration is growing among Democrats on Capitol Hill as the Trump administration refuses to provide a legal justification for attacking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The U.S. military strikes have killed at least 61 people since early September.
Visibly agitated, Mr. Warner said that the Republicans-only meeting was a violation of a law requiring bipartisan briefings of congressional leaders on national security matters.
“When an administration decides it can pick and choose which elected representatives get the understanding of their legal argument of why this is needed for military force and only chooses a particular party, it ignores all the checks and balances,” he said.
On other side of the Capitol, military legal experts had been scheduled to testify in a closed-door bipartisan briefing for the House. But the Trump administration decided not to send them.
“They didn’t even show up with the lawyers,” said Representative Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, after the meeting.
He said that without the Defense Department’s legal advisers, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee were unable to obtain an explanation of the legal basis for the military strikes.
“They just said that they can’t answer these questions because the lawyers aren’t here,” he said.
A senior Trump administration official, discussing the strikes on the condition of anonymity, said the administration had been far more forthcoming on their legal rationale than the Obama administration had been when it conducted covert drone strikes against terrorist targets.
A White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said the Democratic complaints were “bogus” and an effort to distract from the government shutdown.
“The Department of War has held nine bipartisan briefings on narco-terrorist strikes, with additional bipartisan briefings scheduled, and individually works through requests from the Hill,” Ms. Kelly said.
The House briefing was led by Rear Adm. Brian H. Bennett, a military officer overseeing Special Operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Mr. Moulton said he gave him a lecture.
“The last word that I gave to the admiral is, ‘I hope you recognize the constitutional peril that you are in, and the peril you are putting our troops in,’” he said.
Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, said the Pentagon officials conceded that the administration did not know the identities of all of the individuals who were killed in the strikes.
“They said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes,” she said.
The Trump administration has designated a number of cartels as terrorist organizations and asserted that gives the military the power to target boats trafficking drugs, though experts have questioned that authority.
Ms. Jacobs said Pentagon officials said they needed to prove only that the targeted people were connected to designated terrorist organizations, even if the connection is “as much as three hops away from a known member” of a designated terrorist organization.
The people who have survived the strikes have been sent to other countries and released. None have been taken into American custody.
“Part of why they could not actually hold or try the individual that survived one of the attacks was because they could not satisfy the evidentiary burden,” Ms. Jacobs said.
The Constitution vests the power to declare war and authorize military operations in Congress. But Republicans, who control both chambers, have not passed an authorization for the escalating campaign against the drug traffickers.
Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, has introduced legislation to reassert congressional oversight, but has been frustrated by the failure of the House to consider such measures.
“A large reason why this is happening is because Congress has for decades allowed it to happen,” Mr. Crow said. “It’s gotten out of control, and it’s time to fix it.”
Frustration is growing among Democrats and Republicans that the Trump administration has not provided the classified memo written by the Justice Department that lays out the legal argument for the strikes.
To address the concerns of Republicans, the Trump administration held the briefing on Wednesday for a dozen G.O.P. senators.
Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, said the White House called him after he asked why the Wednesday briefing had not included Democrats.
“And I said, yep, because Intel and Armed Services, we do things on a bipartisan basis when it comes to this, we want to keep it that way,” he said.
Mr. Rounds said he hoped Democrats received the same information “because it was a very good briefing; it explained a lot of stuff.”
Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, who has raised some questions about the boat strikes, requested the briefing, according to congressional officials.
Mr. Warner said that he appreciated Mr. Rounds’s comments but that the Republican lawmakers should have walked out of the briefing.
The Trump administration, Mr. Warner said, needed to make the Justice Department’s memo and the target list available to all members of the Senate.
“If we allow this kind of foul to take place, what happens next time?” Mr. Warner said. “I shouldn’t be shocked. Only Republicans were called before the strike on Iran.”
Lawmakers asked Pentagon officials in the House briefing on Thursday to provide that legal memo, according to a U.S. official, who discussed the classified briefing on the condition of anonymity. But the Pentagon officials would not say when they would turn it over. The delay, the U.S. official added, was because the White House does not want to show members of Congress the memo.
Mr. Crow said the House briefing contained no discussion of the administration’s larger strategy, adding that the presentation had only deepened his concerns.
In an interview, Mr. Crow said the United States was “spending vast amounts of money” for very little.
“It looks as though the Trump administration has learned nothing from our last 20 years of war, and it’s going to end up giving us the same lackluster results,” he said.
Ms. Jacobs said House lawmakers pressed the Pentagon briefers for details about the drugs that were on the boats struck by the military.
President Trump has claimed, without evidence, the strikes had destroyed both cocaine and fentanyl, a far more deadly drug. But Colombia mostly produces only cocaine, which is trafficked through Venezuela, according to experts.
“They admitted that all of the narcotics coming out of this part of the world is cocaine,” Ms. Jacobs said. “They, you know, talked a little bit about the connection between cocaine and fentanyl, although I’m not convinced that what they said was accurate.”
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Northern Virginia Magazine: Virginia Lawmakers Work to Keep the Space Shuttle Discovery in Virginia
Oct 03 2025
Virginia Lawmakers Work to Keep the Space Shuttle Discovery in Virginia
By Maggie Roth
In Northern Virginia Magazine
A group of lawmakers, including Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, are working to keep the Space Shuttle Discovery in Virginia despite efforts to move it to Texas.
The Discovery has been on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center since 2012. It was one of four shuttles that NASA allocated for public display when the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011. The others are on display in California, Florida, and New York.
Texas lawmakers Ted Cruz and John Cornyn began the push to move the shuttle to Texas this summer, arguing that it belonged in the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. And the Great Big Beautiful Bill Act included an $85 million appropriation to move it there.
Senators Seek to Block Funding
Now, Kaine, Warner, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (a former astronaut), and Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin have asked the Senate Appropriations Committee to block funding for that relocation from the final fiscal year 2026 spending measures. In a September 23 letter, the senators argued that the move would cost more than the allocated $85 million and would risk damaging the shuttle in transit.
“Dedicating hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to move an artifact that is already housed, displayed, and preserved in a world-class facility is both inefficient and unjustifiable,” the letter said.
And, the letter continued, travel puts the shuttle at risk to damage from exposure to salt water, weather, and collision risks. “Moving the shuttle would inevitably and irreparably compromise the artifact and render it unusable as a museum-quality collection item, permanently diminishing its historical and cultural value for future generations,” it said.
OMB Asks Smithsonian to Prepare for Transfer
The White House Office of Management and Budget has asked the Smithsonian and NASA to begin preparing for a transfer, FFXnow reported. A letter sent to Congress on September 30 said that the Smithsonian and NASA were asked to verify the actual costs of the move.
Both NASA and the Smithsonian have estimated that the move would cost at least $120 million to $150 million for the relocation, in addition to the cost of building a new facility for the Discovery in Texas.
The Smithsonian also said that the Discovery would likely need “significant disassembly” to be moved, though it would need an engineering study first. “Discovery is the most intact shuttle orbiter of the NASA program, and we remain concerned that disassembling the vehicle will destroy its historical value,” the Smithsonian’s letter said.
The Smithsonian also reiterated that it maintains ownership of the Discovery. “We remain concerned about the unprecedented nature of a removal of an object from the national collection,” the letter said.
“There is a political desire and they have funding to relocate the shuttle to Texas. We, on our part with the Smithsonian, are working very hard to prevent that from happening,” said Chris Browne, the John and Adrienne Mars director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. “We think it’s badly ill-advised for many, many reasons, but it’s still here and we’re working hard to make sure it stays here.
While Smithsonian museums use federal funding to operate, their collections are not government property. Instead, artifacts are treated as trust objects subject to Smithsonian control.
The Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly gets more than 1 million visitors per year, and it it’s free to enter. The museum announced plans in September to undergo its first renovation since 2003. The renovation will expand the Boeing Aviation Hangar by 20 percent, with a projected completion date of 2028.
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Mark Warner: Here's how we fix Virginia's affordability crisis
By Mark Warner
In Richmond Times-Dispatch
Last week in Richmond, I had the privilege of hosting the “Keys to Housing Affordability Summit,” where local leaders, housing advocates and policy experts came together to confront one of the most urgent challenges facing Virginians and Americans everywhere: the housing crisis.
The numbers paint a sobering picture. The United States is short nearly four million homes needed to keep pace with demand. Closer to home, more than one-quarter of Richmond renters spend over half their income on rent. Nationwide, nearly half of all renter households are cost-burdened, allocating over 30% of their income to housing, and the cost of buying a home has soared nearly 50% since 2020, putting homeownership further out of reach for working families. And while wages have risen modestly, housing costs have risen much faster, leaving millions struggling to make ends meet.
Behind these numbers are real people. We heard stories of families being priced out of their own neighborhoods: the nurse who can’t afford to live near the hospital where she works, the young couple who put off starting a family because they can’t find a starter home, and the seniors in rural Virginia struggling to stay in homes that are falling into disrepair.
That urgency is why I unveiled my Road to Housing agenda at the Richmond summit — an all-of-the-above plan to build more new homes, revitalize vacant properties, support rural communities and help first-generation buyers achieve homeownership. These are the kinds of practical solutions our communities need now.
We can expand the nation’s most successful affordable housing program through the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would help build nearly 1.6 million new affordable homes over the next decade. We can invest in communities left behind by supporting rehabilitation of vacant properties — like abandoned hotels, warehouses and strip malls — through my RESIDE Act, and by extending and expanding successful tax initiatives, like the federal New Markets Tax Credit and Rehabilitation Tax Credit, to drive investment into new housing development.
We can make homeownership attainable for first-generation buyers through the Downpayment Toward Equity Act and help them build wealth faster through the LIFT Act, offering 20-year mortgages at the same monthly cost as a 30-year loan.
And we can ensure rural and underserved communities aren’t forgotten by strengthening tax credits and empowering community lenders through my Scaling Community Lenders Act.
And let’s not overlook the role of faith-based organizations and colleges that want to use their land for affordable housing. My Yes in God’s Backyard Act would help cut the red tape and turn underutilized property into much-needed rental homes.
The solutions are within reach, but they will only materialize if we act now. Local governments, nonprofits and the private sector must rise to meet this challenge.
At our summit, we saw the kind of creativity that should be a model for the nation: Here in Henrico, the county is not only turning data center revenues into a $60 million Affordable Housing Trust Fund that will generate up to 150 new homes a year, but cutting red tape and incentivizing new construction by changing zoning rules and waiving water, sewer and permitting fees.
Employers have a central role, too. Housing is an economic competitiveness issue: workers need to live where they work. I urge business leaders across the commonwealth to step up by partnering with local governments on workforce housing projects, investing in employer-assisted housing programs, and advocating for smart policies that expand supply, because our workforce depends on it.
If we care about strong communities, economic fairness and America’s future, housing must be a national priority. That’s why I’m urging the Senate to swiftly pass a bipartisan housing package advanced by the Banking Committee this summer. I’m proud of the progress we’re making in Virginia, but this is a national crisis, and it requires national leadership.
At the end of the day, solving the housing crisis isn’t about politics. It’s about ensuring every American has a safe, stable and affordable place to call home. That’s the foundation on which everything else is built. And that’s what I’ll keep fighting for in the Senate.
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Virginia Mercury: Virginia Senator Spearheads Bipartisan Efforts to Boost U.S. Housing Supply
Aug 05 2025
Virginia senator spearheads bipartisan efforts to boost U.S. housing supply
By Charlotte Rene Woods
In Virginia Mercury
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, recalls how over the years, he and colleagues in Congress used to say “we’re gonna get to housing next, we’re gonna get to housing next.” But it never really came, he said, and now “housing shortages are a real crisis.”
Last week, he called himself and his colleagues out for “kicking the can on housing” since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Though he and others had introduced proposals, the proposals haven’t always succeeded. But he’s encouraged this year, as a package of housing bills he helped craft advanced unanimously through the Senate’s Banking Committee.
He said that the overall goal is helping states cut through red tape and build more housing to fit their residents’ needs.
“‘Okay, locality, you don’t want the feds snooping into your zoning — but here, if we give you extra money or extra flexibility, will you be willing to lean in on speeding up the zoning and permitting process?’” Warner said the package proposes hypothetically.
For example, the package includes an “Innovation Fund” that would authorize $800 million to support locally-driven initiatives to expand housing supply and reduce costs. The Housing Supply Frameworks Act would direct the U.S. Housing and Urban Development department to create best-practice zoning and land-use frameworks as guidance for localities. The HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act reauthorizes and updates HUD’s HOME Investments Partnerships Program to help localities facilitate construction of more affordable housing.
The first bit of the housing bills Warner spoke of on a call with the Mercury was the RESIDE Act, which he co-authored with Indiana Republican Jim Banks. That bill would create a new pilot program to help communities convert vacant commercial buildings — derelict hotels, warehouses, or strip malls — into residential ones.
“You’ve got deserted strip centers — they’ve got water, they’ve got power, they’ve got broadband, they’ve got parking,” Warner said.
Federal assistance can help communities get conversion projects over the finish line, he suggested. To achieve this, the program would operate under HUD to give grants to local governments seeking to acquire, site prep and rehabilitate blighted properties.
It’s “low hanging fruit,” state senator Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, said. Like the U.S. senator, he is also focused on housing legislation and no stranger to introducing it in Virginia.
Some advancing legislation in Warner’s package is similar to measures introduced by VanValkenburg and others at the state level. Not all of the ideas came to fruition, though, as they met concern or pushback from local governments.
Such was the case for a bill by VanValkenburg that would have required localities to adopt by-right zoning for multifamily housing near commercial and business districts, which are often also corridors with public transit. The bill failed, as did his proposal to give state government authority to step in when local governments failed to take steps to create affordable housing.
Meanwhile, Warner’s Build More Housing Near Transit Act would amend a federal grant program to allow the Federal Transit Administration to give transit projects a higher rating if they are located in areas that adopt policies to encourage more housing near public transportation hubs.
VanValkenburg noted that federal lawmakers can help accentuate state and local lawmakers’ efforts.
“Subsidies are things that the federal government can really do to help jump start housing that state or local governments can’t always do in the same way,” he said. “Solutions are going to be solved, fastest, if all three levels of government are working together, and each level of government can bring something different.”
Other measures included in Warner’s housing package streamline efforts between different federal agencies to reduce funding or approval delays for things like new rural housing or preservation of existing rural homes, enhance transparency on loans for veteran homebuyers, and fund a pilot program for grants and loans to help low-and-moderate-income homeowners or certain landlords address critical home repairs and health hazards to preserve affordable housing stock.
With an estimated shortage of 4.5 million homes nationally, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, lawmakers at all levels are exploring how the public sector can help the private sector.
Dubbed the Bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act, Warner is hopeful that the housing package stands a good chance to become law.
The fact that the committee voted unanimously, he said, is something he feels “pretty darn good about."
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Virginia must resist Trump's attacks on higher ed – before it's too late
By U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine
In Richmond Times Dispatch
Last month, the Trump Department of Justice crossed a dangerous line when it interfered in the governance of the University of Virginia to oust president Jim Ryan, not for misconduct or mismanagement, but for reasons of personal and political grievance.
Under Ryan’s leadership, UVa expanded access to first-generation and low-income students, navigated complex challenges around free speech and campus safety, and strengthened UVa’s standing as one of the world’s premier public research institutions. But instead of being recognized for those accomplishments, he was targeted — the latest casualty in a calculated campaign by the Trump administration to politicize higher education and undermine local governance of public education.
We fear that what happened at UVa is just the beginning. Already, the Trump administration appears to be eyeing its next target: George Mason University President Gregory Washington. The accusations — which are pushed by bloggers with ties to ultra-conservative groups with histories of false claims about Mason and advocacy for the removal of university presidents — are eerily similar to those lodged against Ryan.
They include vague and politically charged accusations centered around “DEI” and suggestions that the university’s administration has been insufficiently responsive to concerns raised by Jewish students about their safety on campus. That’s despite the fact that the university’s leaders have repeatedly and publicly condemned antisemitism and actually been praised by the local Jewish Relations Council and campus Hillel for their leadership and commitment to Jewish members of Mason’s community.
Mason’s police chief was also recently honored by the Combating Antisemitism Movement for the work that the university has done to keep Jewish students safe and the number of reports of antisemitic activity at Mason decreased by more than 60% between the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years.
Credible concerns about antisemitism on college campuses must be taken very seriously, and universities have a responsibility to ensure that Jewish students feel safe and supported on campus. However, the idea that the Trump administration’s actions have anything to do with protecting students would be laughable if it weren’t so disturbing.
Donald Trump himself has a long record of antisemitic speech and behavior. Just last week, he was rebuked by the Anti-Defamation League for using an anti-Jewish slur in a speech. And his administration’s playbook — blowing up the entire Department of Education while meddling with a handful of schools — makes plain that the real goal is to impose ideological and political control over educational institutions at every level.
Given the Trump administration’s deeply troubling record so far, we have little confidence that any investigation they launch will be fair or impartial. Instead, we fear it will serve as yet another smokescreen to punish universities and leaders who don’t align with their ideological goals.
Mason is one of Virginia’s greatest success stories. What began as a small commuter campus in the 1950s has grown into the commonwealth’s largest public university, recognized nationally for both academic excellence and accessibility. The Carnegie Foundation recently recognized Mason as the only Virginia school with top-tier rankings for both research and student access, a rare distinction that reflects its role as a powerful engine of upward mobility for veterans, first-generation students, Pell grant recipients and community college transfers.
Mason has also earned praise for fostering a vibrant intellectual environment that welcomes diverse viewpoints. Its campus is home to both the Antonin Scalia Law School and the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution — a reflection of the university’s commitment to fostering a wide spectrum of ideas. That commitment is why the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression recently named Mason one of the top universities in the country for free speech. Turning a success story like this into a political target does nothing but jeopardize the very values our universities are meant to uphold.
As senators and former governors, we believe decisions about who leads our colleges and universities should rest with their boards — appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state legislature — not with partisan actors in Washington seeking headlines or revenge. The federal government has no business strong-arming university boards to install political loyalists or punish academic leaders for failing to march in lockstep with their agenda.
Our institutions of higher learning must remain places of academic freedom, critical thinking and open dialogue — values that have made Virginia’s colleges and universities some of the best in the world and a cornerstone of our economic strength. Virginia consistently wins accolades for our economy, business climate, educational attainment and overall quality of life.
These achievements — and the progress we still strive toward — are rooted in continuing our strong bipartisan commitment to an education system that works for all Virginians. Our advances in recent years show that Virginia already knows how to make progress happen. The last thing we need is federal bureaucrats from a deeply unpopular administration undermining one of the key factors in our success.
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Va.'s senators on the front lines, in the headlines
By Jeff Schapiro
In Richmond Times Dispatch
This past Friday, during breaks in the U.S. Senate’s vote-o-rama — the marathon of roll-calls on taxes and spending — Virginia Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine shuttled between each other’s hideaways in the basement of the Capitol to plot and scheme.
They’ve been doing a lot of that lately.
It is keeping Kaine and Warner on the front lines — and in the headlines — in the chaotic, up-is-down world that is Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C. This is a rarity for Virginia, a state often content to send to the Senate hidebound conservatives who didn’t necessarily work well together and for whom sitting on the sidelines qualified as activism.
Issues, policies, personalities, seniority, a penchant for the practical — and their respective concerns, nurtured and refined over more than 30 years in elective politics, and a personal friendship that reaches back four decades to Harvard Law School — are combining to simultaneously elevate Warner and Kaine as sustained voices in debates over national security and global trade.
Warner, seeking a fourth term in 2026, has — and not just as the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee in a Republican-controlled Senate — become a watchdog on the Trump administration, warning that Signal-gate, the continuing purge of seasoned military leaders deemed personally disloyal to the president, the mass firing of CIA staff, and protectionist tariffs inflaming allies and adversaries are weakening America’s defense, diplomatic and economic standing.
Kaine, elected to a third, perhaps final, term in 2024, has — as a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, where there are still flickers of bipartisanship — harnessed the discontent of Democrats and Republicans with Trump’s tariffs, winning Senate passage of a measure shielding Canada from the 25% import tax on its products imposed by the president. Though doomed in the House, the proposal was an early rebuke to the centerpiece of Trump’s trade policy.
“They’re being Mark and Tim,” said Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a veteran Democratic operative who, from his perch in mountainous, deep-red Craig County, has counseled his party for more than 20 years on ways to win back rural — read: Republican — voters. “I don’t think either one of their policies have changed. Plus, people like them.”
That Kaine and Warner — the former succeeded the latter as governor, during eight years of Democratic control, from 2002 to 2010 — are at center stage nationally is, in part, because they represent the state differently. Their interests are complementary. Ditto their personalities.
This makes for a productive partnership, ensuring Virginia has pull across Senate committees with jurisdiction over services and spending prized in the state: defense, the social safety net, scientific research and economic development. Also, that the Virginians doing the pulling — a somewhat tightly wound Warner and a comparatively mellow Kaine — have the standing and sources to get things done.
In addition to Intelligence, Warner sits on Finance; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Rules. Kaine’s assignments beyond Armed Services and Foreign Relations include Education, Health, Labor and Pensions. Both — Warner, first elected in 2008, is senior to Kaine, a senator since 2012 and unsuccessful vice presidential nominee in 2016 — are members of the Budget Committee, giving them dibs on spending.
The Warner and Kaine profiles are further magnified by one of Virginia’s defining characteristics: If only because of an accident of geography — that the state is next door to D.C. — Virginia is a giant beneficiary of federal largess now imperiled by Trump’s attack on government spending and employment.
According to the U.S. Census, more than 320,000 full-time federal civilian employees live in Virginia, working for agencies located in the state or its neighbors. It is estimated by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments that there are about 190,000 federal jobs based in Virginia — one of the top-three concentrations in the country. And Virginia leads the nation in federal contracts, totaling $106 billion.
Such numbers would seem staggering to an earlier pair of Democratic senators from Virginia — Harry F. Byrd Sr. and A. Willis Robertson. They served in the Senate together for 20 years, starting in the late 1940s, though their alliance was initially forged in the early 1900s as members of the Virginia Senate.
Byrd would become the state’s maximum leader, advancing — as a governor and U.S. senator who led the tax-writing and tax-cutting Finance Committee — a mantra of fiscal conservatism. He would decry as wasteful the billions of dollars spent on programs that, he believed, were of little value to a then-heavily rural constituency, with which he shared a rigid commitment to racial segregation.
As the state grew — becoming a suburban-dominated dynamo in no small measure because of federal spending that has contributed to high education levels and higher incomes — a center-right Republican with a broad independent streak, John Warner, would become Virginia’s dominant figure in the Senate. First elected in 1978, Warner won five terms, becoming the state’s longest-serving Republican senator. On his retirement in 2008 — Warner died in 2021 — he was succeeded by Mark Warner. The two were not related.
Warner was chairman of the Armed Services Committee, watching out for its many military installations and its defense industry. And while he was hawkish on national security and intelligence, Warner went dove-ish, in the view of Republican absolutists, opposing Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court and the Senate candidacy of Iran-Contra figure Ollie North, and endorsing Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016. Warner backed Mark Warner for reelection in 2014.
Over 30 years in the Senate, Warner served with two Republicans, Paul S. Trible Jr. and George Allen; two Democrats, Chuck Robb and Jim Webb; and a Democrat-turned-independent, Harry F. Byrd Jr., who — much as his father did — made a career of criticizing federal fiscal indiscipline.
Brent Tarter, a historian who has written extensively on Virginia’s politics and government, notes that many of its U.S. senators, a la Byrd the elder, were largely preoccupied with state matters.
There were exceptions: Carter Glass, who in the early 1900s won restrictions on voting by Blacks and poor whites, was the co-author of banking safeguards adopted during the Great Depression. Thomas Staples Martin, Byrd’s predecessor as leader of the state’s conservative political apparatus, was Senate Democratic majority leader in 1917; then, minority leader after Republicans won control.
Tarter suggests that Warner and Kaine — much like John Warner — have struck a balance as senators. And that, to some degree, recalls an earlier era.
“Although they remained partisan leaders in the state and within their parties, all three worked with members of the other party in the Senate to achieve shared goals that they perceived to be in the national interest,” said Tarter. “A rather old-fashioned idea that what is good for the country should be good for the political party, too.”