Security at Home

Hey folks. Here’s a message from my team on my work this week. Enjoy the weekend. – MRW

Happy Friday from the Warner press office. Sen. Warner is crisscrossing the Commonwealth today and through next week, using the Fourth of July break in the Senate schedule to meet as many Virginians as he can. It’s a welcome relief from the chaos of Washington, where he spent the week fighting to pass a housing bill, continuing to ensure Bill Pulte can’t wreak havoc on our national security, and demanding the security of our elections.

Let’s get into it.

HOUSING HAVOC

If you’ve been following Sen. Warner for awhile, you know that fighting to end the affordable housing crisis is one of his top priorities.

For years, he’s been introducing countless pieces of bipartisan legislation that would make it easier to build more homes and lower costs for all – from bills that would help close the racial wealth gap to proposals that would make it easier to build affordable housing on the unused land surrounding faith communities.

You can watch a video on some of his ideas here:

And after years of fighting and advocacy, that work is paying off. Following months of back and forth, the Senate and House both passed the ROAD to Housing Act, a bill that contained over 40 bipartisan proposals – including several authored by Sen. Warner – that would meaningfully address this crisis. It was the most significant piece of housing legislation in the past 30 years, a true win for families across the country.

Sen. Warner laid out some of the most impactful proposals in this video and in this press release.

And while victory was mere minutes away… a signing ceremony already staged and a press conference fully underway… President Trump snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and announced that he wouldn’t sign the law until Congress passes the SAVE America Act.

(If you haven’t been following along, the SAVE America Act is such an aggressive voter suppression bill that even many Republicans don’t support it. It’s already been voted on several times in the Senate – it will never, ever pass in this Congress unless Republicans decide to blow up the filibuster. Sen. Warner put out a release spelling out exactly how disastrous this law would be for Virginians here.)

It was a truly shocking and mystifying decision. While inflation continues to spike and families suffer because of the cost of Trump’s illegal and unpopular war… you would think that any logical person would do the bare minimum and sign a broadly bipartisan measure that could lower housing costs. Unfortunately, our president is not a logical person.

Sen. Warner reacted to the news in this video:

While this is an enormous setback, it’s not the end of the fight, and Sen. Warner will keep pushing to get this bill across the finish line come hell or high water.

PUSHING BACK ON PULTE

A top Trump attack dog now has the keys to all 18 of our intelligence agencies. Sen. Warner is fighting hard to keep our intelligence community – and our most classified information and national security by extension – safe.

Here’s what’s going on… after the resignation of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Trump appointed top attack dog Bill Pulte to the post. Pulte has absolutely NO relevant national security experience. His only relevant qualification is that he used his existing role in the Trump administration – as head of the FHFA – to comb through private mortgage information and manufacture totally bogus cases against Trump’s political enemies.

The move was both dangerous and illegal – the statute clearly expresses that whoever assumes the role must have extensive national security expertise.

So this week, Sen. Warner continued to fight back and press for accountability. Alongside Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Jim Himes, he pressed Pulte on several of his biggest concerns with his appointment. In a letter, they wrote:

“We are concerned that your record as Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency demonstrates a willingness to misuse your position, including your access to sensitive information, to pursue President Trump’s perceived political enemies and further his retributive political agenda. Given the extremely sensitive nature of intelligence, we expect that you will not declassify properly classified information that would compromise intelligence sources and methods, or weaponize the declassification process for partisan political purposes, and that any declassification effort you undertake will follow all established policies and practices, including by obtaining substantive input from career intelligence officials regarding the national security risks posed by declassification.”

But Sen. Warner also went far beyond that. This week, he introduced a bill that would prevent Pulte from taking the DNI position by strengthening the existing line of succession, and ensuring that the role is filled by an experienced, Senate-confirmed national security official. After introduction, Sen. Warner said:

“Bill Pulte may be exactly who President Trump wants running the intelligence community, but that does not make him qualified for the job. After pulling his own selected nominee from the confirmation process, the president chose to install a political ally with no intelligence background, no national security credentials, and a record of using government power to pursue political grievances as the country’s Director of National Intelligence. The intelligence community should be led by experienced, Senate-confirmed professionals – not by whoever happens to be most willing to carry out the president’s whims and vendettas. And if there is an intelligence failure, a missed threat, or a national security crisis on Bill Pulte’s watch, Americans will pay the price, and President Trump will be to blame. He made the deliberate choice to pass over qualified national security professionals and put an unqualified loyalist in charge.”

On Wednesday, he fought to pass this bill on the Senate floor and gave a speech highlighting just how important it is to stop Pulte. You can watch his full speech here:

While Republicans blocked its passage, the fight isn’t done. Sen. Warner will keep working against this dangerous appointment.

RETURN TO SENDER

With less than five months to go until the midterms, Sen. Warner has been working tirelessly to ensure the security of our elections. Worried about Trump’s obsession with losing in 2020 and his expressed intentions to “nationalize” and “take over” the upcoming midterms, Sen. Warner is pressing everyone from top administration officials to the CEOs of tech companies to take steps toward ensuring the integrity of our voting systems.

This week, Sen. Warner took his efforts to the United States Postal Service.

ICYMI… President Trump issued an illegal executive order to create a national list of citizens that would determine voting eligibility and restrict mail ballots. The order seeks to force states to submit absentee voters’ information to the Postal Service to create a federal mail-in voter list. Well, that’s unconstitutional, which is why Sen. Warner previously urged USPS to NOT carry out this order. And yesterday, a federal judge agreed and struck down part of it, ruling that only states can determine voter eligibility requirements.

But the fight isn’t over because USPS has issued a proposed rule to implement Trump’s order, handing itself the right to refuse to deliver ballots to voters who are not included on that mail-in voter list. This would give USPS an unprecedented role in the administration of our elections, allowing it to determine whether millions of Americans can receive and cast ballots through the mail.

Sen. Warner – along with every other Senate Democrat – demanded USPS abandon the rule. They wrote:

“…on June 2, 2026, USPS published a proposed rule that, if finalized, would establish President Trump’s control over federal elections and allow USPS to adjudicate who can and cannot vote by mail. This proposed rule risks disenfranchising millions of voters. We again insist that you follow the law, refuse to implement President Trump’s Executive Order, and withdraw this presidentially-directed proposed rule.”

They’re worried that a national list of absentee voters would be ripe for potential misuse and abuse. That’s not a crazy concern considering Trump’s DHS is already in discussion with USPS about potentially comparing the list to DHS datasets. Combining USPS data with unreliable DHS records could lead to tons of eligible voters not being able to exercise their right, or even voters and election officials being unfairly targeted for investigation.

As the midterms quickly approach and polls continue to look damning for Republicans who did nothing but deliver higher costs and new foreign wars… this won’t be the last attempt we see from the Trump administration to interfere in elections. But Sen. Warner will stand up and continue fighting each new bogus effort.

GRAB BAG

R-AI-SING AWARENESS: Sen. Warner introduced bipartisan legislation to provide more transparency on digital content generated by artificial intelligence.

SUPPORTING STUDENTS: Sen. Warner introduced bipartisan legislation to expand access to innovative financing options for students pursuing postsecondary education and workforce training while also establishing strong consumer protections to safeguard participants.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Sen. Warner will be traveling throughout the Commonwealth over the next week. Stay tuned for more information and follow along on his social media!

###