Saturday, March 1 — At the gala grand opening ribbon cutting of Virginia Tech’s new Innovation Campus in Alexandria yesterday, Virginia U.S. Senator Mark Warner, former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, unloaded on the Trump administration’s real and threatened cuts to the kind of cutting edge R&D programs such as those being carried out at the new campus.

Warner spoke before hundreds of state and regional officials, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Sen. Tim Kaine, gathered for the event. With all the kudos and congratulatory remarks about the new campus, Warner said he had to address “the elephant in the room,” the cutting by Trump of funds mandated by Congress for vital national security-related R&D. “No administration can take away what Congress has mandated, and I will stand with Virginia Tech students and everyone involved in our effort to compete with China.”

He said national security now revolves around technology, and China is moving in that area as the U.S. did in the post-Sputnik era. “The race for AI and the energy to power it will decide who wins the 21st century,” he said.

Sen. Kaine followed Warner to note the importance of the proximity of the new Innovation Campus to the Pentagon, saying “our challenges from a defense perspective are to develop the talent, the technology and the cooperation and innovation that we need.” He said that America’s is a challenge “we cannot do on our own, but with cooperation that ranges from that between Virginia Tech and George Mason University in this ares, to the U.S. House and Senate, to our relations with NATO.

As for a brief interruption of the ceremonies by a group protesting the university’s ties to the defense industry, Sen. Warner remarked that the right of the demonstrators to express themselves is what distinguishes a democracy from an authoritarian regime, and is “the secret sauce of our success.”

Gov. Youngkin also spoke and U.S. Rep. Don Beyer was scheduled but was unable to attend due to an illness, according to a spokesman.

The role of Virginia Tech’s presence on fringe of Falls Church will be resumed when the new innovative building now under construction there, across the new Mustang Alley from Meridian High School is completed, and Virginia Tech Senior Vice President Lance Collins mentioned the Falls Church location’s future role in his remarks at the event.