Tom's Midday Newsmaker guest today is Maryland’s senior senator, Ben Cardin.
The senator is a longtime member of the Foreign Relations Committee. He was at the COP 27 Climate Change Conference last month in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they led their respective US congressional delegations at the summit. When President Joe Biden addressed the gathering, he pledged the US would do its part to avert “climate-hell,” but meeting clean energy goals and helping developing countries transition to clean energy remain a heavy lift.
And, as winter takes hold in Ukraine, what’s next for US support of the war effort there? Russia continues to target key infrastructure sites, denying power and water to millions of people across the country. Next month in Washington, when the GOP assumes its narrow majority in the House, Republicans have targeted Ukraine aid, sending signals that they are less inclined to continue US help.
Plus, what do the social unrest and protests in the authoritative regimes in Iran and China portend for the future?
Sen. Cardin is also the chair of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. He’s sponsored a bill to re-authorize support for small businesses from the Small Business Administration.
Ben Cardin has been a fixture in Maryland and then national politics since he was first elected to the Maryland General Assembly in 1967. Twenty years later he was elected to the House of Representatives, and twenty years after that, he was elected to the US Senate.
Senator Cardin joins us on Zoom from his Senate office on Capitol Hill.
