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00:00Are you a yes vote on the Ukraine funding bill today. I am. I'm. I'm very excited about what I expect is going to be a significantly bipartisan vote to continue the real uptick in military humanitarian support for Ukraine. We need to help them beat this illegal invasion of their country by Vladimir Putin. The president course made the call. An urgent call a couple of weeks ago. At this point 33 billion it's crept up to about 40 billion. And this this bill was held up as I'm sure you well know by Senator Rand Paul who had concerns about oversight. And I know that you specifically were not in favor of the individual he was talking to even went further to talk about the impact on inflation through deficit spending. Right. In principle why is he wrong. Well he's not wrong on oversight. So he had a fairly vanilla oversight amendment that all of us said you're right there ought to be oversight in these moneys. But then he started to dictate the terms of who the oversight should be done by. We don't do that in oversight bills. Oversight yes. But letting one senator pick who the oversight official will be. That's not the way we do it. But on the oversight we need to and we will we will provide oversight on it. The American public strongly supports Ukraine. The administration has done a great job. Even before the invasion of assembling a coalition of NATO nations and other democracies humanitarian aid military aid sanctions canceling the Nord Stream to pipeline banning Russian oil imports going after Putin as a war criminal and international tribunals. This was all sort of pre negotiated so that when the invasion happened we could snap the alliance into place. And now you see nations like Sweden and Finland who've never been part of NATO saying that they see the value of these democracy standing together against tyrants and they want to join. I'll ask you about their visit in just a moment. But will the president be allowed to to appoint a watchdog. How do you see it best fit for this use. Well I think the there are traditional ways that you set up inspector generals and you set them up as independent of the agency. And so they are executive appointed but they are not sort of embedded within the agency performing the functions so that they can have true independence. And if you look at you know ISE reports we get them virtually every week under the Trump administration under the Bush administration. They're tough. There is an aging report that came out recently about withdrawal from Afghanistan. That was very tough. It was. And so you put somebody in that's independent. You let them do their job. You don't threaten them if you don't like what they're saying. You worry about the inflationary component or is the senator from Kentucky making too much of it. Well I actually think the best thing one of the best things in the world for inflation would be if this war is over because the Russian invasion of Ukraine is causing massive disruption in energy markets which is leading to inflation. So allowing Russia to succeed would make things worse. Winning the war is how you beat inflation. It is zero. There's other strategies too. Yeah for beating inflation. But certainly in the energy sector and also in the food sector. Ukraine is is a huge food producer and when they are not able to export to other parts of the world it creates hunger and also has an impact on food prices. Again if we help them beat this illegal invasion it will help bring prices down. So Senator the bill goes to the president. He signs it. What happens after that. How will this work in conjunction with the Lend Lease Act and what will it buy for Ukraine. So what you see right now we did the thirteen point six billion dollar aid package a couple of months ago. And then about every week you see president binary leases 300 million or 500 million. What we do is once we know what the scope is our military is in very close touch with Ukrainian defense forces and also with the other allies who are providing defense support. And we are in dialogue every day. What do you need and where do you need it and when do you need it. And then we release tranches of aid based on those discussions. And in each week the need is a little bit different. But the communication and the intelligence sharing the Ukrainian defense forces have been heavily trained by the U.S. and NATO since 2014 after the invasion of Crimea. We dramatically increase the pace of training with the Ukrainian defense forces. So we have been very cooperative for the last eight years. And that turns makes it easy to make real time decisions with them about what they need. You mentioned what's happening on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue as we speak here today Senator the leaders of Finland and Sweden are with President Biden talking about their bid to join NATO. I'm sure you support that bid. But do you worry about Vladimir Putin seeing this as an escalation that this could be in fact a dangerous development. You know Vladimir Putin worrying about what will provoke Putin. I think the guy was born provoked. And you know his I mean just listen to this language he uses. I'm invading Ukraine because they need to be denounced defied. When Vladimir Zelinsky is one of three heads of state in the world who's Jewish. I mean this guy lives in an alternate reality. He was born provoked. I don't think there's anything that we can do right now that will provoke him. Sweden and Finland have maintained neutrality because they felt like they needed to have good relations with. Sizable nation right on their border but now they see Russia as a dangerous and destabilizing force and the end even dangerous to their own national security and they want to link arms with other democracies to protect ourselves and be an ally with democracies around the globe. I think it's very far from your view though a unique view on armed services and foreign relations. Does that potentially add to the chances this creeps beyond the borders of Ukraine. I would argue it probably. Look Vladimir Putin is hard to predict. It might have the opposite effect. He he clearly had an expectation he could go into Ukraine topple the government take it over depose Zelinsky. He's realized his ambitions were wrong. The Ukrainians don't want to be part of Russia even even the most pro-Russian parts of Ukraine. On the Russian border Russian speakers Russian national and Ukrainians they've seen what Vladimir Putin has done in Donetsk and Lugansk and said we don't want any part of it. And so this has backfired. And when he sees Sweden and Finland abandoning decades of neutrality to join NATO you know he or somebody else in Russia needs to come to their senses about what a disaster this illegal war is. Senate approved our new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine last evening. What does Ambassador Brink bring to the table. What will that change in the war effort. Well it's first as it sends a powerful symbol to the Ukrainian people when we reopen our embassy in Kiev. The European nations have done that in recent weeks. It sends a very powerful signal. She is a very skilled career diplomat who served in some challenging places and brings a lot to the table it. This is a time when communication at all levels between the U.S. and Ukraine at the political level at the military level. Congress people and parliamentarians more communication helps. And having a U.S. embassy flagship embassy there in Kiev that will that will send a powerful signal and improve the communication that we do every day. China's of course watching and making some noise as the president prepares for his trip to Asia suggesting that we're taking a dangerous road I think was was the quote from China's foreign minister with regard to Taiwan as the president prepares to engage with South Korea Japan. What is it that keeps you up at night. The threat from North Korea as they prepare another nuke test or China. China's the one that I'm learning more about North Korea. Sadly. If they feel like they're being ignored than they want to do something to get everybody's attention back. I mean it's. Which is which is kind of a sad statement about the leadership of that country. I have complete trust in our defensive capacities to deal with the threat from North Korea. The China threat is is a multi level threat. It's military it's economic. It's diplomatic. I've been disappointed in recent years that China has paid a lot more attention to the Americas often than the U.S. does. And so that the China China's an adversary across many many domains and in some instances a competitor. And in some instances we even cooperate together. So it's a complex relationship. I think it's important that we are providing together with others Taiwan with the ability to defend their own their own country. And that's what they won. And we ought to be providing them with that. And what China has seen that you know they pledged forever friendship with Russia right before the Beijing Winter Olympics. I don't know that they were meaning to pledge forever friendship with a war criminal. And I have reason to believe they're now questioning the degree they want to completely link arms with a Russia that's committing war crimes. But they've got that. China has also seen is they've not only been you know gotten a vision into who Vladimir Putin is their forever friend. They've also seen how quickly the democracies of the world will link arms and stand up against an illegal invasion of somebody else's country. And they see the impact that sanctions and military and humanitarian aid can have. So we're not embarking on a dangerous road with Taiwan. We're trying to do the kinds of things that will enable them to defend themselves. And that China would view that as dangerous. I think that's that's a language that they're using. They don't they don't think we have any designs on Taiwan. But but the fact that Taiwan has more ability to defend itself I guess is troubling to them. These are dangerous times. We have a lot to talk about. But I'll ask you lastly about this baby formula story. The House has acted on this. Is there a legislative solution in the Senate. I'm reading that it may not pass the Senate. Is there more that can be done than what the White House is. I think you'll see us take this bill up in the Senate next week and vote. And I would say that you're going to see every Democrat I believe vote for it. There's got to be 10 Republicans as much as they've been out bashing Joe Biden for this. And I want to come back to how and accurate that is. As much as they've been out bashing him about it you would think they would vote to solve it. And I hope we'll see that. I mean look this is a challenge that was driven by the largest manufacturing facility for infant formula in the United States had. Serious safety problems. The last thing we want is for people to be buying formula off shelves and have it be tainted have it be dangerous to their kids. So the safety problems are so serious that that plan had to be shut down. We're now going to use the Defense Production Act to increase production. We're allowing importation of formula that safe from other countries. The company that closed its plant down has reached an agreement to do some fixes. They should be reopened within two weeks of starting to produce again. So we will solve this problem. We just have to you know step on the accelerator and solve it as fast. Is it any different with Republicans vote against this than if they vote against a Ukraine funding bill after calling on the president for months to send more arms to Ukraine. Well I'm very puzzled by people voting against the Ukraine bill. Now I will say most of my Republican colleagues I think are poised to vote for it. We had a kind of a test vote the initial procedural Monday I think it was 89 to eleven. So solid Republican support all of the no votes. Republicans Democrats are 100 percent in support of this effort. There are no votes on the Republican side. I think you'll see that be bipartisan. A vote on infant formula should be every bit as bipartisan. But we'll have to have that vote next week. Can see.

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Senator Tim Kaine on Ukraine Aid, NATO Expansion, Putin

Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, joined Bloomberg's Joe Mathieu for an exclusive conversation on the latest Ukraine Aid package, the expansion of NATO, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Source: Bloomberg)

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