Virginia senator on Venezuela, former Honduras president being pardoned and more

(CBS, KYMA) - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) spoke with Nancy Cordes on Face the Nation Sunday about Venezuela.

According to Cordes, Sen. Kaine tried to pass the war powers resolution, forcing President Donald Trump to get approval from Congress first before any military action, twice. However, both attempts have failed.

This led Cordes to ask if the numbers on the resolution will change if there is ground action, and will it even matter, and Kaine said:

"I do believe the numbers will change...I along with others, filed a resolution, no war in Venezuela or against Venezuela without congressional approval. It failed, but that was before all of these assets have amassed around Venezuela, and before President Trump said that the airspace needs to be closed. I will move with colleagues, Senator Schumer, Senator Paul, Senator Schiff, immediately should there be military action. And then secondly, I also attempted to stop the, what I view as illegal boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific together with Adam Schiff, and the circumstances have changed in the months since we had that vote. In each of these instances, we were able to get two Republicans to vote together with Democrats. We think the escalating pace and some of the recent revelations, so, for example, the recent revelation about the kill everyone order apparently dictated by Secretary Hegseth. We do believe that we will get more support for these motions when they are refiled."

During the interview, Cordes and Kaine talked about President Trump announcing he plans on pardoning former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence after being convicted of conspiring with drug cartels to move 400 tons of cocaine from Honduras to the U.S.

When asked if he was surprised by the president's announcement, Kaine said:

"This is shocking, and again, this is not an individual who was accused of running drugs to the United States. He was convicted in a federal court in the United States. One of the bits of evidence was his statement that was picked up by those near to him that he wanted to shove drugs up the nose of gringos and flood the United States with cocaine more than 400 tons. He was the leader of one of the largest criminal enterprises that has ever been subject to a conviction in U.S. courts, and less than one year into his sentence, President Trump is pardoning him, suggesting that President Trump cares nothing about narcotrafficking. Suggesting possibly that pardons are now for sale by this White House. And if he doesn't care about narcotrafficking, and this was also shown earlier this year with the pardoning of Ross Ulbricht, then what is this Venezuela thing really about? The President of Colombia has said that he thinks it's about the U.S. trying to seize oil assets in Venezuela. I lived in Honduras for a year as a missionary way back when. The conspiracy theories are running wild in the Americas about why this- this military effort is so important to the President when he's pardoning drug kingpins who are running drugs into the United States. These are also questions that we're going to have to dig deeply into when we return to Washington tomorrow."

Later in the interview, Cordes and Kaine talked about the Trump Administration halting all asylum decisions and Afghan immigration applications in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard members.

This prompted Cordes to ask the senator if the Administration has a case "that it makes sense to put some of these processes on hold while they figure out what happened," to which Kaine said:

"Let's just acknowledge this sad fact, these two guards, members, Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe, what a tragedy for them and their families. And you know what? They should have been at home at Thanksgiving, celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, not deployed in a political deployment, to do law enforcement in D.C. that the D.C. police and other local law enforcement agencies can do. And this demonstrates, yet again, something we've seen so often our troops, including our guards members, they're going to serve in brave and courageous and self-sacrificing ways, and we can be so proud of them, but the orders that they get from their civilian leaders, that's where the problem comes in. Whether it's a Hegseth order to kill them all, or an order to send guardsmen and women in a political stunt deployment to cities around the country, these two individuals should have been celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, and I just mourn for them and all who suffer as a result. The president's decision to say, okay, this particular criminal who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, who came in under an asylum grant, that President Trump and his administration decided this past summer, that now we're going to pause processes or asylum from 19 'third world countries' you don't know which ones they are. You shouldn't paint with a broad brush. Go after a criminal to the full extent of the law. But don't say that all Afghans in the United States, those who served with our military and who lost their lives and their health and their families in many ways by doing so, don't say that they're all bad. Don't say that people who come from third world countries are bad. Virginia, about one out of nine of us is an immigrant, and our immigrant communities in Virginia have been an enormous source of strength to our commonwealth and to our country. And it's wrong to target them all for the bad actions of an individual, just like we wouldn't target other communities in the United States for the bad actions of one individual."

To watch more of Cordes' interview with Kaine, click here.