WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) released the following statement after the Augusta Medical Group announced the closure of three practice locations—Weyers Cave Urgent Care, Buena Vista Primary Care, and Churchville Primary Care—in response to Republicans’ law that made major cuts to Medicaid:

“We appreciate Augusta Health’s courage and transparency in being clear about the cause of these closures: reckless cuts forced through by our Republican colleagues. We warned that their partisan tax bill would lead to shuttered clinics, lost jobs, and reduced access to critical health care services, especially in rural communities. Sadly, this is exactly what we are now seeing – and no amount of massive tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy can justify the damage to Virginia families.”

Warner and Kaine strongly opposed the Republican law that made major cuts to health care, food assistance, and other programs that Virginians rely on in order to slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans. More than 15 million people currently covered under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will lose their health insurance, and many rural hospitals will lose federal funding, putting them at risk of closure.

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WASHINGTON – At a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) pressed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his failure to acknowledge basic facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and raised urgent concerns about the future of community health centers and rural hospitals following the massive Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.

Warner expressed disbelief that Kennedy, after eight months in office, could not answer how many Americans died from COVID or whether vaccines saved lives.

“Mr. Chairman, the Secretary of Health and Human Services doesn’t know how many Americans died from COVID. He doesn’t know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths. And you are sitting as Secretary of Health and Human Services? How can you be that ignorant?” Warner said.

Warner pressed Kennedy to support solutions to improve rural health care, including his legislation to raise the Medicare area wage index to better reimburse rural hospitals, and a bill with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to require safeguards before hospitals can eliminate obstetric services. Kennedy ultimately pledged to work with Warner on both proposals.

“Americans want to get healthier, but they also don’t want their basic health care removed,” Warner concluded, inviting Kennedy to join him at a Virginia community health center to hear directly from patients and providers.

A transcript of their exchange follows.

WARNER: Mr. Secretary, I agree with a lot of my colleagues' statements. I actually had hoped, even though I didn't support you – I thought taking on chronic illnesses was going to be important.

I've got two kids, as we discussed when you met, that have chronic illnesses. I'm not sure that the focus on red dye and seed oils are going to fully solve that problem.

KENNEDY: Of course they won't.

WARNER: I would say this: that seems where your emphasis is.

I want to go back to just, again, some basic facts. Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?

KENNEDY: I don't know how many died.

WARNER: You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?

KENNEDY: I don't think anybody knows that because the… there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC and there were so many –

WARNER: You don't know the answer of how many Americans died from COVID?

This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?

KENNEDY: Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data. I’m not fully –

WARNER: You've had this job for eight months and you don't know the data about whether the vaccine saved lives?

KENNEDY: And that's the problem is that they didn't have the data. The data by the Biden administration is absolutely dismal. It was chaos.

WARNER: Who is politicizing? You're saying the Biden administration politicized all the data? Go back to what Senator Cantwell just said, go to the Trump Surgeon General –

KENNEDY: They fired Dr. Grubb, they fired all the people who questioned the orthodoxy. They fired Dr. Gruber, Dr. Krause.

WARNER: Mr. Chairman, the Secretary of Health and Human Services doesn't know how many Americans died from COVID. He doesn't know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths.

And you are sitting as Secretary of Health and Human Services? How can you be that ignorant?

Like, you know, I remember when we went to the hearing with you, I asked you about community health centers. You didn't know what role they play.

I've been visiting community health –  I'm glad you've got to one, I think in April.

I tell you what. What I hear from community health centers, they are terrified, with all due respect to my good friend the chairman, of the Big Awful Bill, because they are going to lose health care across the board. They already live in food deserts. They can't get to a nutritionist because Medicaid doesn't do enough reimbursement.

If you're going to want Americans to get healthier, shouldn't they have access to nutritionists? Should they have access to good science about healthy food?

KENNEDY: Absolutely.

WARNER: Well, then how is that going to happen with the Medicaid cuts that are taking place?

KENNEDY: There are no cuts to Medicaid.

WARNER: Sir, that is an absurd –  there is not a single –  to my Republican colleagues, there's not a single study that does not – and I can tell you, I was in Franklin, Virginia a couple of days ago. The rural hospital is going to close. The hospital system was so afraid they wouldn't even let me have the meeting there, but that rural hospital is going to close.

And they are looking for where those folks are going to go. I mean, you're supposed to be doing health care policy, not being the doctor in residence for all of America. I hope – I can only say, I'm still going to trust my doctor rather than your health advice. And, obviously, Tom Cotton's going to –  who knows who he's going to trust?

But let me – let me go back to policy for a couple – so maybe we can lower the temperature a little bit. I had a bipartisan bill that would be a systemic fix, not a vote-buying mechanism, when Medicaid's getting cut, than what was put in on the rural hospitals. One of the things we could do, Mr. Secretary, is make sure that the folks who work in rural hospitals get an 80 percent reimbursement of what folks get in more urban centers. Would you support that legislation?

KENNEDY: The – are you talking about the area wage index?

WARNER: I'm talking about the area wage index and moving that up to 80 percent so there is, actually, the ability to get rural providers...

KENNEDY: Yeah. President Trump supports that, and we support that.

WARNER: Do you support – do you support – good. So you will work with us to get that passed?

KENNEDY: Yes, Senator. I – I (inaudible)...

WARNER: That will increase costs for both Medicaid and Medicare. So you are committed to that? I appreciate that.

What about, Senator Wyden and I have got a bill – because across America...

KENNEDY: What about what?

WARNER: ... hospitals are shutting down on their ob/gyn services. Try to have a baby – I don't know about all of my other friends' states, but in Southside Virginia, you can't find a hospital. Will you work with us to make sure that before ob/gyn services are taken out of a rural hospital, there has to be a process and procedure?

KENNEDY: I'm happy to work with you on that, Senator, meet with you and – and see if we can work with you on it. I don't know exactly what the issue is.

WARNER: Well, hold it, again. A secretary of health and human services who has said he doesn't know how many people died from COVID, doesn't know if the vaccine saved lives, doesn't understand the issue of ob/gyn...

KENNEDY: I – I didn't know if it saved a mil – (inaudible) if it saved a million lives.

WARNER: Ob/gyn doctors are fleeing rural America because they can't afford it. And with the cuts that are coming up, it's going to be exponentially worse. I would invite you, sir, to come with me to a community health center in Virginia and hear what is on people's minds.

They want to get healthier? Absolutely. Count me in. But they also don't want their basic healthcare removed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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FRANKLIN, Va. – In case you missed it, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott on Tuesday traveled to Franklin’s Hayden Village Center to sit down with Franklin community members and leaders who rely on Southampton Medical Center – one of the six rural hospitals in Virginia and more than 300 rural hospitals across the nation that are now at disproportionate risk of closure, conversion, or dramatic service reductions following passage of the “Big Beautiful” Republican budget law.

Key Quotes from Sen. Warner: View Clip HERE

• “I’ve been governor and senator for a long time. I think this may be the worst piece of legislation I’ve ever seen in my life, and that’s saying something.”

• “At the end of the day, this bill was about providing a giant tax cut disproportionately for the most successful Americans. And I’m all for success. I’m a businessman. I’m a capitalist. But the cost of paying for that extraordinary tax cut, we are taking in many ways the heart out of health care for Americans who are the most vulnerable.”

• “This was not a bipartisan bill. This was one team driving through a piece of legislation that will have huge, huge ramifications. The Big Ugly Bill will cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid.” 

• “300,000 Virginians will lose their health insurance. Those people are not going to disappear. They’re going to simply show up at the emergency room. And if the hospital closes here, they’re going to have to spend a lot of time checking the traffic to see how to get to Portsmouth or Petersburg to get basic access to health care.” 

• “The mayor was talking a little bit about some of the challenges Franklin’s got now. If we’re going to recruit additional businesses here, keep our businesses that we’ve got, we’ve got to have local health care. That is the starting point.”

Key Quotes from Speaker Don Scott: View Clip HERE

• “Take the politics out of it and just deal with the math. You can’t deliver the same amount of services for substantially less resources. It’s impossible. This is math. You can’t argue with math. You can argue with a whole lot of stuff, but math is math. You can’t do the same thing that you used to do for one more dollar when you only have a dime.” 

• “What the Senator was talking about when he talked about the [enhanced Premium Tax Credit] subsidy, these are people who are working every day. These are people who are working hard, playing by the rules, families with children and they need the subsidy to be able to make up for the difference, that delta that happens between what they can afford and what they need. And that subsidy is paid for by people who have benefited from America in a real way, very wealthy people who have been able to benefit from our system. Why shouldn’t they give a little bit more back? As the Senator said, I’m a capitalist, too. I’m a trial lawyer. I love to get paid, love to make money, don’t get it twisted. But I’m also very grateful to be in a country where we have a system where somebody like me who should never be where I’m supposed to be … Only in America am I even possible. So I’m grateful to pay my fair share back. We have people who are billionaires who don’t want to pay their fair share back.”

Key Quotes from Mona Murphy, lifelong resident of Franklin, Va.: View Clip HERE

• “The potential closure of Franklin’s hospital … would have devastating consequences for our community. The closure of our hospital would leave [families] without accessible health care, forcing them to travel 20 miles to Suffolk, Virginia for medical services. For many, this distance is overwhelming due to financial constraints or lack of transportation options.”

• “Franklin is striving to rebuild itself through educational advancements, attempts at attracting new businesses and encouraging young families to settle here. However, the loss of the hospital would severely hinder these efforts … As someone who works closely with families and children in our schools, I see the dire need for accessible health care in our city every day. Emergencies are unpredictable and the absence of a nearby hospital could have life-threatening consequences for our students and residents. I can’t even imagine a scenario where a child’s life hangs in the balance because we lack immediate access to medical care.”

Event Coverage

• 13NewsNow: Southampton Medical Center at risk of closure after Medicaid cuts hit rural hospitals

• Cville Right Now: Sen. Warner meets with people who receive care at a rural hospital that could face closure

• Virginia Mercury: Federal, state lawmakers call on Va. hospitals to ‘be transparent’ about federal funding changes

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WASHINGTON –  Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) and U.S. Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) slammed the Trump Administration’s withdrawal of $39,265,000 in federal funding they secured for the Fairwinds Landing maritime operations and logistics facility in Norfolk: 

“The withdrawal of federal funding for the Fairwinds Landing facility is further evidence of this Administration’s across-the-board, reckless approach to governing. If the Administration took the time to learn about the project, it would realize that it is about investing in maritime supply chains and port infrastructure to support not only clean energy but also shipbuilding and ship repair. Stopping this project makes no sense, hurts our economy, and is completely counterproductive to the Administration’s so-called efforts to ‘restore America’s maritime dominance.’ We will be working with our colleagues in Congress, state officials, and partners in the region to urge the Trump Administration to reverse its decision.”

The Fairwinds Landing facility will support offshore wind, shipbuilding and repair, and transportation and logistics. In March, Kaine and Scott toured Fairwinds Landing.

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WASHINGTON – Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-VA) released the following statement on the firing of General Jeffrey Kruse as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA): 

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country. General Kruse is a career military officer with decades of distinguished, non-partisan service to our nation, making this ouster all the more troubling.

“It is perhaps unsurprising that General Kruse’s removal as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency comes on the heels of a DIA assessment that directly contradicted the president’s claim to have ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear program. That kind of honest, fact-based analysis is exactly what we should want from our intelligence agencies, regardless of whether it flatters the White House narrative. When expertise is cast aside and intelligence is distorted or silenced, our adversaries gain the upper hand and America is left less safe.”

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WASHINGTON – Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-VA) released the following statement after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released plans to cut the office’s workforce:

“Twenty years after it was established, there is broad, bipartisan agreement that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of thoughtful reform. The Intelligence Authorization Act directs Director Gabbard to submit a plan to Congress outlining her proposed changes, and we will carefully review her proposals and conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security. But given Director Gabbard’s track record of politicizing intelligence – including her decision just yesterday to revoke security clearances from career national security officials – I have no confidence that she is the right person to carry out this weighty responsibility.”

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) highlighted a new report from the Joint Economic Committee warning that the Trump Administration’s sweeping tariff regime—which has included almost 100 different policies since April—has directly harmed the American manufacturing sector and could cost the U.S. more than $490 billion in manufacturing investments by 2029.

“If President Trump were actually focused on lowering costs, he would never have never implemented his idiotic, unpopular sales taxes in the form of tariffs,” said the senators. “This report clearly shows the short and long-term damage Trump’s tariffs will have on American manufacturing businesses and consumers. We’re going to keep doing all that we can to pressure Trump to listen to these critical warning signs, reverse course, and put our economy first.”

The Joint Economic Committee, using both U.S. business investment growth projections and economic analyses of uncertainty for United Kingdom businesses in the years following the U.K. Brexit vote to leave the European Union, found that:

• A prolonged period of economic uncertainty in the U.S.—as the U.K. faced—could result in more than a 13 percent decrease in manufacturing investment per year, totaling more than $490 billion by 2029.
• Since April, when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, the U.S. has lost 37,000 manufacturing jobs and hiring in the manufacturing sector has dropped to the lowest level in nearly a decade. After a surge during the previous administration, manufacturing construction spending has been in decline since Trump took office, as businesses refrain from making major investments amidst the economic uncertainty.

• Even if the uncertainty about the U.S. economy were to end tomorrow, the uncertainty that businesses have already experienced because of tariffs will have long term effects on U.S. manufacturing. Committee calculations find that the economic uncertainty experienced in April alone could result in a one percent reduction in manufacturing investment per year, a loss of more than $42 billion by 2029.

Read the full report here.

Warner and Kaine have been leaders in the fight against Trump’s dangerous tariff policies. In July, Kaine, the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, announced his intent to file legislation to challenge Trump’s tariffs on goods from Brazil. The legislation is privileged, which means the Senate will be forced to vote on the legislation soon. In April, the senators successfully secured Senate passage of a bill to undo Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods. Kaine has since sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson demanding that he schedule a vote in the House of Representatives on his Senate-passed legislation. Kaine also forced a vote on his bipartisan legislation to repeal President Trump’s across-the-board tariffs that the White House announced on April 2.

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader; Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Chris Coons (D-DE), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, sent a letter to President Trump urging him to reverse his recent decision to allow AMD and Nvidia to sell advanced AI semiconductor chips to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in exchange for a fee.

The senators emphasized that such sales “run counter to U.S. national security interests” and highlighted concerns that the collection of fees may violate U.S. statutes and possibly the Constitution.

The letter cites the president’s August 11, 2025, statement regarding a “negotiated deal” in which a 15 percent fee would be charged to enable these sales. The senators noted that U.S. export laws explicitly prohibit fees “in connection with the submission, processing, or consideration of any application for a license or other authorization or other request.”

The senators wrote that U.S. national security relies on protecting America’s advantage in AI computing capability and access to leading-edge hardware. They warned that advanced AI chips sold to China could be used to strengthen its military systems, including hypersonics, communications, surveillance, and battlefield decision-making.

“Our national security and military readiness relies upon American innovators inventing and producing the best technology in the world, and in maintaining that qualitative advantage in sensitive domains. The United States has historically been successful in maintaining and building that advantage because of, in part, our ability to deny adversaries access to those technologies,” wrote the senators. “The willingness displayed in this arrangement to ‘negotiate’ away America’s competitive edge that is key to our national security in exchange for what is, in effect, a commission on a sale of AI-enabling technology to our main global competitor, is cause for serious alarm.”

The letter also requests detailed information from the administration by August 22 regarding the negotiation, legality, collection, and intended use of the proposed 15 percent fee, as well as whether similar arrangements are being considered for other companies.

The senators concluded, “We again urge your administration to quickly reverse course and abandon this reckless plan to trade away U.S. technology leadership.”

The letter follows an earlier missive to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on July 28, urging the against the sales.

The full text of today’s letter is available here. 

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) released a statement after the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report finding that the VA’s health system is facing a severe staffing shortage of clinical and nonclinical workers:

“Under this administration, we’ve seen policy after policy that makes it harder for public servants to do their jobs and ultimately harder for veterans to get the care they’ve earned. Now the VA’s independent watchdog says that every single veterans health system nationwide is experiencing staffing shortages – and that severe shortages are up 50 percent from last year. We’re talking about nurses, medical officers, psychologists, and even police officers.

“We also know from recent jobs reports that applications to work at the VA are plummeting. How do skyrocketing staffing shortages and declining applicant pools make it more ‘efficient’ for veterans to access the care and services they deserve? The answer is: they don’t. If the administration is serious about honoring our veterans, it needs to stop undermining the VA workforce and start recruiting and retaining the skilled professionals who care for our heroes.”

The OIG’s survey – conducted between March 26 and mid-April – found that every veterans health system nationwide reported at least some degree of occupational staffing shortage. The most common shortage areas included medical officers, nurses, psychology roles, and police officers.

Sen. Warner has long championed legislation and oversight to improve care and services for veterans. He has been a leading voice in strengthening suicide prevention efforts, including expanding access to mental health care. Warner has also fought to secure long-delayed approvals for VA medical facility leases across the country – including in Virginia – so that the VA can modernize its infrastructure and bring services closer to the communities veterans call home.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) announced $8,235,920 in federal funding to reduce energy costs for Virginian households and expand access to reliable, affordable energy across the Commonwealth. Awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), this funding is allocated through the Weatherization Assistance Program, which aims to reduce energy costs for low-income households by increasing energy efficiency of homes, and through the State Energy Program, which assists in the designing, developing, and implementing of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.

“Expanding access to affordable energy sources and improving energy efficiency are important steps we can take to lower energy costs for Virginians,” said the senators. “We’re glad over $8 million of federal funding is coming to Virginia to help us do that. But this funding is a drop in the bucket compared to the $156 million in federal funding to support the deployment of affordable solar energy that the Trump Administration is illegally blocking from Virginia. We will keep doing all that we can to pressure the Administration to release that funding to lower costs for Virginians.”

The $8,235,920 in federal funding is awarded as follows:

• Under the Weatherization Assistance Program, the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development will allocate $6,803,840 for home upgrades and repairs, including health and safety checks, the installation of upgraded energy efficient lighting, the replacement of heating and cooling systems, and more.
• Under the State Energy Program, the Virginia Department of Energy will allocate $1,432,080 for the designing, developing, and implementation of renewable energy, including programs to help reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector by 2050 and accelerate the use of alternative transportation fuels for, and the electrification of, vehicles.

Today’s announcement follows pressure from Warner and Kaine on the Trump Administration to release $156 million in federal funding for energy accessibility and efficiency programs in Virginia that the Administration is currently illegally withholding. The withheld funds were awarded to Virginia under the Inflation Reduction Act, which the senators helped pass, and was expected to provide access to more than 15,400 households in Virginia while creating nearly 2,000 solar-related jobs across the Commonwealth.

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) issued the following statement after the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) reported that premiums for Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage are projected to rise by an average of 20.5% next year – a spike driven largely by the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits that have helped make health care more affordable for hundreds of thousands of Virginians:

“The news that Virginians who rely on health care coverage from the marketplace could see their premiums jump by more than 20% next year is deeply troubling. This entirely-avoidable increase is being driven by the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits that have helped hundreds of thousands of Virginians afford quality health care. While President Trump and congressional Republicans bent over backward to extend tax cuts for the uber-wealthy as part of their tax and budget bill, they chose not to renew these critical health care credits that have saved the average Virginian nearly $90 a month. Alongside our Democratic colleagues, we even forced a vote on an amendment to the bill to extend the credits, and Republicans voted it down.

“We know what’s at stake when health care becomes unaffordable: families go without coverage, people skip doctor visits and prescriptions, and small health problems turn into costly emergencies. That’s not only bad for public health, it drives up costs for everyone. We remain committed to restoring these critical tax credits and bringing down health care costs, and we call on our colleagues in Congress to put politics aside and act now to prevent this needless premium spike from hurting Virginia families.”

The enhanced premium tax credits were first enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic to lower monthly Affordable Care Act marketplace premiums for American families. President Trump’s tax and budget bill, passed by the Republican majority in Congress over Warner and Kaine’s strong opposition, did not extend these credits. As a result, Virginians who purchase coverage on the Virginia marketplace will see the largest share of next year’s premium hikes directly tied to the loss of these credits. Without action, more than a third of the nearly 415,000 Virginians who currently rely on this coverage could be priced out of their health insurance, according to the SCC Bureau of Insurance.

Last month, Warner and Kaine introduced legislation to repeal the health care provisions in President Trump and Republicans’ ‘Big, Ugly Bill’ and permanently extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced tax credits.

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