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Floor Speech

There is an expression that says don't let facts get in the way of a good story. What we just heard is a good story. Let's, unfortunately, dissect the facts that are completely inaccurate.

I am on the Homeland Security Committee; my colleague from California is not. That was not the bill that we sponsored. The bill that we sponsored was something called the PELOSI Act, your longtime Member of Congress from California, who perfected the grift of insider trading, who came to Congress, I think when I was born, when the Presiding Officer was born, and well before our colleague from Florida was born, and has somehow managed to be worth $300-plus million. That is why I thought it would be in honor of her that we would introduce the PELOSI Act, the ability to just stop insider trading.

Let me just also be clear about where we stand on this bill. This is a massively bipartisan bill that came out of the House. Every Republican voted for it and 13 Democrats, which never vote unless every Democrat is voting together, voted for this bill.

And if not for the objection that you just heard, if not for the objection from my colleague from California, tomorrow the President of the United States would have signed this bill into law. And what would it have meant? What would the President tomorrow have signed had this objection not been heard?

No longer can Members of Congress or their spouses or their adult children buy stocks with inside information. They would not be able to sell stocks without a 7-day public announcement period, which would, in effect, end forever the practice of insider trading that has plagued this Congress.

We could have gotten that done. So I want you to process that for a second. There are commercials 99 days before the midterm elections in which Democrats, including the Presiding Officer's disastrous opponent, that are talking about banning insider trading. That guy was here for 30-plus years. My colleague from California has been here for 5 years. The three of us have been here for 18 months, and we could have passed a bill tonight to ban insider trading.

Democrats have blocked the ability to ban insider trading. Those words don't even make sense to me as I say it. Why? It is the classic DC two-step: introduce an alternative measure that they know will never pass so they can keep the grift operation going.

Be able to say: Oh, look, we oppose that, too, but this doesn't go far enough.

My colleague from California worked with me diligently--I might add, which I appreciated--to ban prediction markets for the entire U.S. Senate. We got that done. It didn't touch the President. It didn't even touch the House of Representatives. We got it done here in the U.S. Senate.

I am proud of that. I am proud that now people--the American people-- know that no Member of the U.S. Senate or their staffs, by the way, can participate in the prediction markets. We got that done because we advanced the ball.

We can advance the ball tonight and ban insider trading for all of Congress. The House handed us a bill. We say yes; the President signs it tomorrow.

You sent the letter. My colleague from California sent a letter to the CFTC, talking about the downside of insider trading among Congress back in January. We could avoid it. We don't need to send letters. We could ban insider trading tonight. Democrats have refused to do that.

Now let's talk about voter ID. By the way, it is called the SAVE America Act, not the SAVE Act. It is called the SAVE America Act. We have talked about it in this Chamber for hundreds of hours. Let's get the name right.

This is not the SAVE America Act. The SAVE America Act, for some reason, is unanimous in its opposition by the Democrat Members of this Chamber. They are totally, completely united on not passing the SAVE America Act, which does two things, by the way. You have to prove you are a citizen when you register. You have to show voter ID when you vote. That is it--two things.

This particular measure in this bill is just photo ID. If you get the all-you-can-eat, Never-Ending Pasta Bowl at Olive Garden, you have to have a photo ID to get another bowl of spaghetti in California. So if I go to my favorite Olive Garden in Los Angeles and I have my Never- Ending Pasta Bowl, I have to bring my ID. But if I go vote, I don't have to.

I think most Americans would think that is insane. I think most Americans would think that is nutty. Why would you not have to show your ID?

It has nothing to do with registration. You mentioned registering to vote. It has nothing to do with registering to vote. It is strictly voter ID when you vote, and there is not IDs that are banned. That is just not true. Read the bill.

It is simple voter ID: a government-issued ID--your picture, your name, your signature--pretty straightforward--80-20 issue. I think 99-1 issue, honestly, but they say it is an 80-20 issue. They got 13 Democrats in the House that voted for this. They knew that if the Senate took this up tonight, what they did last week would become law.

We could have gotten voter ID in the entire country. Mr. President, 30-plus States already have it. And we would have banned insider trading. Those two things could have happened tonight.

And the fact that they didn't is a decently sad day--July 27, 2026, the day Democrats said we shouldn't have voter ID in America and we shouldn't ban insider trading.

Let me just close with a little anecdote. I was asked by the Government of Colombia to go down and monitor their elections. That was a great honor, being born in Colombia--a full circle of my life. Now I am here in the Senate. Imagine somebody in Colombia has asked me to go down and monitor the election.

By the way, I knew as much as you, Mr. President, about how the elections in Colombia works. Actually, that is not true, you probably knew more. I had no idea. I go down there. And what do they require in Colombia, South America: A country with abject poverty, dramatically less well-off than the United States, dramatically more ethnically diverse, by the way--they require every citizen of Colombia to carry with them a national ID card that proves they are a citizen. They are not even allowed into the hall where the voting happens without that national ID card that proves they are a citizen of the country of Colombia.

And when they go to vote, they have to get their fingerprints done and their signature, show that ID with their photo on it, before they are handed a paper ballot that is counted by hand. And the election results--after 25 million votes--takes 1 hour. The GDP of Colombia is less than the GDP of L.A., and yet the mayor's race in L.A.--3 weeks after the election--they are still counting votes.

Now, I was in the registrar's office, afterward, debriefing on the election. We are obviously speaking in Spanish because we are in Colombia. And I asked them what happens if somebody walks into the hallway--they wander into the hall--they want to vote, and they don't have their ID card?

Now I came to the United States when I was 5. My siblings make fun of me and say my Spanish is not perfect. It probably isn't. So when I said that, the registrar turned to his assistant and said ``I think the Senator has lost his Spanish.'' And his assistant says ``What do you mean?'' He says ``I don't understand his question.''

So he repeated it in perfect Spanish. He turned to me, and he goes, ``What a dumb question. Of course, we wouldn't let somebody come in and vote without their ID. That would be abject idiocy''--his words.

And yet a dozen-plus States in the United States of America--the most rich and powerful country on Earth--does not have voter ID. We could have gotten that done tonight.

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