January 29, 2021

Yes, Sen. Tim Kaine Is Still Harmonica Dude

In case you were wondering.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) rocks out on the harmonica at a Senate Christmas event in 2020, with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on piano.Michael Brochstein/Zuma

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Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia and 2016 vice presidential candidate, is back in the spotlight this week for his plans to file a censure resolution that could prevent former President Trump from holding federal office ever again.

That got me thinking, does he still carry all those harmonicas in his briefcase?

It turns out that he does—in his backpack, not a briefcase, his communications director corrected me. He has one in each of the main keys, from A to G, plus an E sharp.

Since the Senate is unlikely to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection, Kaine is writing a resolution that takes language from the 14th Amendment as a workaround to ensure that Trump can’t be reelected in 2024. (The resolution’s prospects in the divided Senate remain unclear.) And, being Tim Kaine, he’ll do all this with a backpack full of harmonicas.

Listen to Kaine jam out below:

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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