Kaine also pushed back on an apparent shift in administration policy that now embraces “regime change” to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power. | AP Photo Kaine: Trump should have asked Congress to authorize Syria airstrikes

Sen. Tim Kaine said Sunday the Trump administration should have sought congressional approval for Thursday's airstrikes against Syria.

“I’m a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons,” the Virginia Democrat said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." “Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that’s not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that’s presented to and approved by Congress.”


“We don’t have a system where the president gets to launch missiles against anyone they want to,” Kaine said.

Despite a White House briefing on Friday, the senator said Congress still has no sense of whether the Trump administration has a strategic plan to deal with Syria.

“We don’t know whether it’s limited or whether there’s more,” he said.

Kaine also pushed back on an apparent shift in administration policy that now embraces “regime change” to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power.

“I don’t think the U.S. policy towards any country ought to be we’re going to change out your leaders,” Kaine explained. “Neither regime change nor a full-on unauthorized war against Syria is what we should be doing.”