Save America Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Madam President, the author George Orwell wrote about a dystopian future in which the party in power spoke in doublespeak, a language in which up meant down and down meant up, good meant bad, and nothing was as it seemed.

In the language of Orwellian doublespeak, to save something meant to destroy it, which brings me to the so-called SAVE America Act.

This legislation will not save anything about America, but it will destroy something precious about this country. It is not meant to empower people to determine the direction of the Nation but to deprive them of that power; not to encourage citizen participation in government but to discourage it; not to heal a nation that is badly divided but to cause further division, disunion, and democratic decay-- because this is perhaps one of the most cravenly political efforts undertaken by Congress in a generation.

The President knows that his policies are deeply unpopular. He knows that his war of choice with Iran is deeply unpopular. He understands that he has betrayed the promises he made to the American people to bring down costs and improve the quality of their lives. He knows that the voters are prepared to hold him accountable in the midterms and vote his party out of power.

But rather than address his many policy failures, he wishes, instead, to prevent people from voting. It is as cynical a device as it is destructive of the foundation of our democracy--the right to vote.

Our Nation is facing a series of challenges that are touching every facet of people's lives. They are paying more at the pump. They are paying more on groceries. They are paying more to heat their home, and this summer, they will pay more to cool it. This is all from a President that has gone from promising to break inflation on day one to now saying, ``If prices rise, they rise.'' Imagine that. If prices rise, they rise.

But that is not all. If the cost of oil goes up, he declares, that is good because it means we make more money.

Well, maybe he does. Maybe, the oil industry friends do. But the American people who are paying through the nose at gas stations all across the country are not making more money. They are spending it on gas at the pump, and they cannot afford it.

This war of choice is costing America billions. More importantly, 13 brave servicemembers have lost their lives in a new foreign war we were promised would never be started.

Now, we have heard a whole host of rationalizations for this war, explanations for this war. None of them add up. At one point, the President said that we had to go to war with Iran because Iran was 2 weeks away from having a nuclear bomb.

Well, beside the fact that there is no intelligence suggesting even remotely that that is true, the President himself said, only 9 months ago, that we had obliterated Iran's nuclear capability.

Well, it can't be both. The President was either telling the truth 9 months ago or he wasn't; or he is telling the truth now or he isn't. But it can't be both. And, of course, everything we know about Iran's nuclear program indicates they are not 2 weeks away from having a nuclear bomb.

So it was also said by the Secretary of State: We are at war with Iran because Israel was going to go to war with Iran, and we knew that Iran would retaliate against us; and, therefore, we had to go to war with Iran.

But the President disputes that rationale for the war. The President says, basically, that his Secretary of State is wrong, that he forced Israel's hand.

OK, so what is the President's rationale then for this war? Well, we all see that the President and the Secretary say it was necessary to destroy Iran's missile capability because those missiles could soon hit the United States of America, except that isn't remotely true either. The Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that it would not be 9 years before Iran would have that kind of capability. It would take 9 years for that country to develop missiles capable of hitting the United States.

So there was no imminent missile threat to the United States. There was no immediate nuclear threat.

That leaves regime change. The President has said that he wants Iranians to rise up and challenge the regime. At the same time, it is being publicly reported that he was warned that that would be extremely unlikely; that is, that the Iranian people would have the power to overturn this entrenched, murderous, terrorist-sponsoring regime; that this would not be Venezuela; that you couldn't simply take out the No. 1 mullah and expect to replace him with the No. 2 mullah that would do the United States' bidding; that that was not foreseeable, not likely, not probable.

Instead, the President was warned this could lead to an even more hard-line regime. And now, we don't have the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. We have Mojtaba Khamenei, who is supposed to be potentially even worse.

So this is not about regime change. It is not about the missile program. It is not about the nuclear program. It is not because of Israel.

So what is it that led us into war? What is it that justifies the risk to the lives of our servicemembers? What is it that justifies the tragic reality that 200 of our servicemembers have already been injured in this conflict?

We are left to wonder. We haven't had a single public hearing about this. We have not had the opportunity to put any of these administration figures under oath to explain why we are at war; why the President betrayed his promise to keep us out of foreign war, to keep us out of regime-change wars, to keep us out of another Middle East war; why our servicemembers are bearing the brunt of this; why American consumers are bearing the brunt of this.

There are public reports that General Caine warned the President that Iran might attack our allies in the region, but the President expressed a surprise that this has happened. There is public reporting that the general also warned the President that Iran might seek to close the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, and, as a result, we are all paying for that in skyrocketing prices at the pump.

All of this was all too eminently foreseeable. But here we are. Global oil markets and global shipping are seeing the seismic waves of Trump's war in Iran--a war without strategy, a war with different aims depending on the day, a war that some can't even bring themselves to call war because the moment they do--as the President calls it war, as the Secretary of War calls it war--but the moment that we in this Chamber call it war, we are acknowledging our own failure to live up to our institutional responsibility that this is the body with the power to declare war, not the President.

The Founders did something remarkable, at the time, when they entrusted that power to Congress--not the President, not the executive branch--because they feared a President who would grow too fond of war. And this is exactly what has happened.

Our allies are not standing with us, a predictable outcome since we have not stood with them. The President says that China and Japan and all these other countries are going to join us in ushering ships into the Strait of Hormuz, but none of those countries are volunteering to do that.

We are seeing the time-tested proposition of regime-change wars: You break it, and you own it.

If you travel across California, as I have, you will hear not just about the sticker shock at the grocery store or the gas pump--and grocery prices are going to go up because fertilizer also transits through the Strait of Hormuz. The tariff policies are killing farmers, and the result is we are paying more at the grocery store.

But it is not just the grocery store. It is not just the gas station. You will hear about how there are no homes that average families can afford to buy, no apartments that teachers can afford or first responders. You will hear about the fire or the storm or the flood that turned the community upside down, like the fires we had in Los Angeles, when, a year later, they are still waiting for the Federal help that was promised them to rebuild.

You will hear about the community that is losing its only hospital or having trouble keeping its OB/GYN or recruiting an OB/GYN, its labor and delivery open because of drastic cuts to healthcare. And instead of investing in those critical parts of our community, we are spending $1 billion a day with this war in Iran.

If you listen closer, you hear a mother ready to enter the golden years of her retirement, worried that her 401(k) won't be enough to get her through, if she is even lucky enough to have a 401(k); or a father in the prime of his working years but worried that Social Security may not be there when he is finally ready to retire; a parent raising a toddler, unable to return to work because the cost of childcare would erase whatever income they would make; a business owner unable to keep up with tariffs that have changed their input costs a dozen times the last 2 months; a farmer finally ready to give in and sell the farm to a big conglomerate after generations of tilling the land because trade wars and immigration raids have made farming impossible; a college student about to earn their degree seeing their world turned upside down by technological revolution and AI, wondering if their years of hard work and exams will amount to anything resembling a career; a high school student seeing a world on fire and wondering if their lives will be anything like what their parents enjoyed, if they can ever afford a home or to retire or have access to healthcare or raise a family or have a job that will sustain them, whether they can still live in a democracy even, or something less, something more sinister, something where Big Brother is watching and listening, where what they say can cost them their job or their future. I have heard a great many examples of these fears. My constituents have shared their deep concerns with me.

Linda from Moreno Valley wrote:

Dear Senator Schiff, I'm a retired teacher and having to make ends meet by picking up work here and there. 69 years old and for the first time in my life my family did not celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays 2025! Why?

I am hurting and don't have the money! Groceries, food prices are not down!

Gas prices are not down!

I could not pay the high drug price for prescription mid- month, so I went without. I fix a broken-down car every other month because I can't afford a new or used one right now.

Trump's tariffs have hurt me, and I don't foresee them as doing any good to us in the next three years. Somehow I just don't feel Great! Just sad.

From Leah in Modesto:

While billions are being spent on foreign conflict, many Americans here at home are struggling. I live in California and paid $7.95/gal for gas today.

Economic inequality is another urgent issue. Current tax policies continue to benefit the ultra-wealthy while everyday Americans are left behind.

Working families need relief, opportunity and a system that feels fair and offers 20-somethings hope for a reasonable future, not one that widens the gap between the top and everyone else.

My 29-year-old daughter is in college, while still working 40 hours/week to survive and is actually thinking about not having children for fear of the inability to provide. That is not the future she wants.

From Sarah in Los Angeles, I heard:

I am writing as a constituent who is struggling under the burden of federal student loan payments that are no longer affordable.

Despite working full time in a helping profession, my monthly loan payment has increased to a level that threatens my ability to meet basic living expenses such as housing, healthcare, and utilities.

This is not a matter of poor planning or lack of responsibility, it is the result of a system that has become financially unsustainable for many working adults.

I urge you to use your position to push for policies that recognize the real cost of living and the long term impact of student debt on mental health, economic participation, and community stability.

Well, Sarah, if we weren't spending a billion dollars a day in Iran, that is a billion dollars a day we could be spending to buy down your student debt, to help other kids go to college and be able to afford it or go through training programs to train themselves for this brave new world of technology and AI that we are entering.

From Valerie in Redwood City, she writes:

I am writing because my [Gas] bill has doubled.

[My gas company] indicates that it has gone down that is not the case at all.

I am not able to retire because my bill has increased. I'm over 70 and a preschool teacher. I live in a condo and cannot afford solar panels. I don't turn on the heaters often I use heating pads on the floor. Thank you kindly for your help in this matter.

From Kiersten in Sausalito, I heard:

My husband is a first responder and law enforcement officer with the National Park Service and has served for 18 years.

He currently works in the Bay area, where income is adjusted for cost of living, but the childcare subsidy is not.

Our household gross income is $185,000, with my husband earning $105,000 of that.

Reliable childcare in Marin County costs well over $3,000 per month, and that figure does not include the basic expenses required to live here, such as housing, food, and other necessities. The average cost of a house in our area is over $1 million.

If I were to leave my job and stay home full time, we would not be able to afford comprehensive family healthcare through his government plan while also covering our basic living expenses. As it stands now, I am essentially working to cover health care for myself and our child, with the remainder of my income going toward childcare.

I would like to see efforts made to modernize and regionalize childcare subsidies so that families serving the federal government can realistically afford to live and work in the communities they serve.

From Sasha in Sacramento, Sasha writes:

Rent takes more than 43% of my net pay and my biggest fear is that my pets will become sick or injured when I can't afford their medical bills.

My grocery bill went up 33% from 2024 to 2025 and that was with me making changes to cut out expensive foods like fish and red meat.

As a registered voter, I am asking you to focus your attention to fix the economic freefall we are in.

These are the sentiments, these are the anxieties I hear every day at townhalls, in constituent meetings, in college dining halls, and dining room tables, in email after email, letter after letter, and call after call. Our mailboxes are full. People are scared. They are worried. They feel the kinds of anxiety that leaves them awake at night, turning over the numbers in their head and wondering if they will ever truly make ends meet.

We could confront these challenges. We could turn to any one of our legislative committees and take up these issues. We could bring up any number of bills that would lower costs, make our communities safer, bring home our troops from a war that the American people never asked for, but instead, the majority has seen fit to say in the face of all of these challenges that instead of solving them, they will simply take away people's right to vote because the American people are paying attention.

They have noticed that prices have not gone down on day one as the President promised. They have noticed gas prices climbing higher and higher. They have noticed Republicans saying that this is a sacrifice they should be comfortable making.

They have seen their groceries, their gas, their utility bills, their appliances, all rocked by mercurial trade policies and on-again, off- again tariffs. They know this Republican Congress' signature accomplishment--the largest healthcare funding cut in history and billions of dollars in food aid slashed to fund a tax cut for wealthy people and large corporations--has only made matters worse.

And you know what? I know you have noticed it too. You have noticed these broken promises, and you have noticed that the American people are pissed. And they are ready to exercise that frustration at the ballot box to send a clear message.

But the response of the majority is to try to make it harder to vote. Now that it is their jobs on the line, they are finally trying to make it harder to get fired by doing away with your right to vote.

That is the SAVE America Act for you. It should be called the ``Save Our Political Hides Act'' because that is exactly what it is, a bill to supercharge the purging of voter rolls; a bill to give the Department of Homeland Security the power to decide who stays registered to vote and who gets kicked off; a bill to kill online voter registration; a bill to kill voter registration drives, to take away your ability to register to vote at the DMV or by mail; a bill that will reject every common form of identification, even your driver's license, if you want to register to vote: a servicemember showing their military ID? Nope. That is not good enough if it isn't showing proof of citizenship.

If you are one of the millions of people who changed their names, their last names when they got married, sorry, it is going to be twice as hard for you to get your ballot. Online registration, registration by mail, registering at the DMV, voter registration drives, all these methods of signing up to vote would be illegal under this bill.

Four years ago, less than 6 percent of Americans registered to vote in person--less than 6 percent. Imagine living in rural California, now forced to drive hours away for even the chance to make your voice heard in November. A family vacation will now be used to get to the county clerk's office just to get a ballot, not to mention if you can't afford to take the time off work or if you are not able to get behind the wheel.

But let's say you make it to the county clerk's office, the Republican majority has sworn up and down that all they want for you is to show a driver's license to register to vote, but guess what. A driver's license won't be enough anymore.

If the SAVE America Act passes, neither driver's license or a military ID or a Tribal ID, none of that will be enough to register to vote. And what about that REAL ID, the upgraded license that the Federal Government has been urging Americans to get for the past several years? Nope. That is not good enough either. If that doesn't show proof of citizenship, that is not good enough either.

One in every two Americans don't have the passport needed to register to vote, and millions more won't have another one of the required methods either. Americans born here, voting here all their lives, denied their ability to exercise their constitutional right by this bill.

Let's say you are just like Melania Knauss. You are a naturalized citizen and wanting to vote this November. You may even want to vote for the Republicans on your ballot. Well, now you discover you are like 69 million other women who have changed their name when they got married, which means that Melania Trump will now have to not only bring her proof of citizenship but also her marriage license to prove she is eligible to vote.

And so in this Republican SAVE America Act world, to even try to register for your constitutional right to vote, you might have to pay $165 to get a passport, take the hours it will require of you to get to the clerk's office, the wages you will miss by getting there, the gas you will have to buy at a much higher rate now, and, inevitably, the bureaucracy will make you come back once or twice.

But let's assume you get all the way through the process of registering to vote in Trump's new federalized election system. Now, you face the prospect of actually casting your ballot. You go to the White House website right now, it will tell you they plan to use this bill as a basis to ban mail-in voting. That is not hyperbole; whitehouse.gov/saveAmerica, read it: ``No mail-in ballots.''

That means 47 million voters from the last election would have to find a new way to vote. And it is not just voters in California, which has gone out of its way to ensure your constitutional right is not an impossible one to exercise, nearly 3 million Floridians voted by mail. And that is not just Democrats. About one in five Republicans cast their ballot by mail in 2024--no longer, if the President gets his way.

Why make it so hard for Americans to exercise a constitutional right? Because Donald Trump has admitted the true aims of this bill. If the SAVE America Act becomes law, he says the Republican Party will ``never lose a race in 50 years.''

This is what this bill is designed to do. It is designed to lock in a Republican majority for half a century by locking you out of the polling place. Former--or soon-to-be-former Secretary Kristi Noem said that we need to make sure the ``right people'' are voting.

Well, who are the right people? The right people, I guess, are people they expect to vote for the President's party.

It used to be in this country both parties sought to increase voter turnout, that we both recognized it as an unmitigated good that more Americans were participating in elections. Not anymore.

This is nothing less than a deliberate campaign to undermine confidence in our elections.

The Speaker says we have a major voter fraud problem. He cites as his evidence three Republican House candidates in California who he says were ahead on election day, but as absentee ballots came in, they fell further and further behind. He can't prove it, but to him, it stands to reason there must be fraud.

He knows better than that. That is just a pure falsehood. This is a deliberate campaign to undermine confidence in our elections. The seizing of ballot boxes in Georgia are meant to undermine confidence in our elections. The subpoenaing of records in Maricopa County are meant to undermine our confidence in elections. All the false talk about massive voter fraud is a complete fiction even according to the conservative Heritage Foundation--a complete fiction--and they would use this fiction to take away the legitimate franchise of millions of Americans.

Look, we have serious challenges in this country. We have a war that the American people don't want and don't support. We have the cost of basic necessities increasing all the time. We have a challenge we didn't face in the great recession or even the Great Depression. The problem today is not that people are out of work, although unemployment is rising. The problem today is that people are working, and they still can barely afford to get by.

That is the central challenge facing our country, and I think, until we grapple with that challenge, our democracy will be on fragile ground. When people see the quality of life their parents enjoyed as something better than what they have and when they look at their futures and they find it in doubt for their kids, all too many will entertain any demagogue who comes along and promises they alone can fix it.

But the answer cannot be to simply take away people's right to vote. We need to address that challenge to make the economy work for Americans again. Anyone working hard in this country should be able to provide for themselves and their families. That is what we should be focused on. That is what the President promised to do. Taking away their right to vote and turning us into some kind of--if not an autocracy, something less than a democracy, that is not the answer.

So I urge my colleagues to vote against this ``Save our Political Heinies Act'' and vote in favor of our democracy, to vote to expand the franchise to more and more Americans, not take it away because of the failure of the President's policies.

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