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Floor Speech
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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I know you are well aware of this, but the Senate needs to pass the Russia sanctions bill, and we need to do it now. We have the votes. Let's vote.
Ukraine has Putin down and is choking him. We need to help Ukraine choke him to death. I am sorry that the people of Russia are having to undergo what they are undergoing. I am doubly sorry the people of Ukraine are, but it is not going to stop until Putin understands--and we make him understand--that the costs of his barbarism outweigh the benefits.
For the first time since 2022, through sheer will and some big brains and help from Europe and help from the United States, Ukraine has Putin on the back foot. It is truly remarkable.
I remember when Putin invaded in 2022. All the experts said Putin is going to roll through Ukraine like thunder on a summer night; headed toward Kyiv, he is going to take it over.
In fact, President Biden then asked President Zelenskyy if he needed help evacuating. And I will never forget what President Zelenskyy said. It was one of his finest hours. When President Biden asked him if he needed a ride, needed help getting out, he said: I need ammunition.
I need ammunition, not a ride.
We should have known then that the Ukrainian people are tough as a pine knot. And I guarantee you, in his heart of hearts, Vladimir Putin wishes he never started that fight.
Putin thought time was on his side. It is not on his side anymore. Russia has had, unfortunately, 1.4 million soldiers die. He is having a hard time recruiting new ones. His flow of voluntary soldiers has dried up. He is now having to pay people to fight, and he may have to impose a draft on the good people of Russia.
Why? It is not hard to figure out. It is grit. It is guts. It is determination. And it is drones. Ukraine is now the drone master of the universe. They started with nothing. They are now the drone master of the universe.
Ukraine is producing more drones. They are producing better drones. They are producing long-range drones. They are going to produce 7 million drones in 2026. That is up from 2.2 million only a few years ago.
Some of those drones can travel up to 2,000 miles. Ukraine is using those drones to overwhelm the Russian air defense. Now, normally, when you send a drone into Russia, Russia has an air defense.
What does that mean? That just means missiles on the ground or other drones that will shoot down that foreign drone invading Russia. Ukraine has figured out a way to overwhelm Russian air defenses so that some of those drones get through. And boy, are those getting through.
No part of Russia is safe right now because of these drones by Ukraine. In late June, Ukrainian drones took out two oil refineries in a city called Ufa--I am probably mispronouncing it. That is a thousand miles behind frontlines.
As a result of these drones, as of late June, Russia had lost 30 percent of its refining capacity.
What does that mean? It means they don't have any gasoline. It means they don't have any diesel fuel. If you are a Russian in Crimea, you can't buy gasoline. They have said no more consumer sales; they are running short. There are long lines in Moscow, as we speak, as I know the Presiding Officer knows, to get gas. The war has finally come to the people of Russia.
Just recently, Ukrainians sent in drones to bomb Wildberries. What is Wildberries? Wildberries is Russia's Amazon, and they keep all these consumer goods in big warehouses. Ukraine used drones to take out two of them--about $2 billion.
But everybody in Russia has felt the impact. They have seen it. Once again, the war has come, unfortunately, to the people of Russia.
Recent polls--it is hard to get good data out of Russia because Putin has turned Russia into China. You can't speak freely. Internet is isolated. They will put you in prison and kill you and hurt you the entire time you are dying if you speak out of turn.
But the good people of Russia still have feelings, and a recent poll showed that only 21 percent of the people of Russia support its government policies.
So now is the time. What this Russia sanctions bill would do is say: If you want to buy Russian oil and gas, you can't use the dollar. And, by the way, you also can't sell your goods in America.
Why are we doing that? Because between 30 and 40 percent of Russia's budget and Putin's budget--they are one and the same right now--comes from oil and gas. So if you cut off your oil and gas, you cut off your cash flow. If you cut off your cash flow, you stop your ability to prosecute the war.
This will not require any American money.
I want to thank the European countries. It took them a while. But they finally faced reality, and they have stepped up and financially supported Ukraine. And the American people generously supported Ukraine for a long time, and we still are sharing intelligence with them. So I want to thank the leadership in Europe and the good people of Europe.
But this will cut off Putin's cash fund--one simple bill. We need to do it, and we need to do it now. And we need to vote. We just need to stop talking and start voting. Election Integrity
Madam President, No. 2, let me talk about election integrity.
Let me tell you what I think of when I think of the SAVE Act. I think of integrity in American elections. Now, you don't have to be a senior at CalTech to know that the American people, no matter what your political philosophy is--Democrat, Republican, Independent; socialist, communist, whatever--you wonder about elections now. You wonder about the integrity.
I mean, I don't know how widespread, if at all, this is, but in New Jersey, we just discovered that the entire population of Bolivia is registered to vote in New Jersey. That is a bit of an overstatement. But after saying there is no problem with our voter rolls, we discover stuff like this.
And we just witnessed elections in California that take months to resolve. When it takes a month to declare a winner for the good people of California, what do you think they are going to think--particularly, the loser?
Look, if America is going to survive, in terms of your party, you have got to be willing to lose and accept that you have lost. And in order to do that, you have to trust in the election.
So when I think of the SAVE Act, I am thinking of election integrity. And, really, what the SAVE Act means to me is two things: It means you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote and in order to register to vote. It is very simple. Rule No. 1, you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to register to vote and to vote.
And, No. 2, we need to go back to having an election day and not an election month. We need to know who the winner is on election night. And if it is a really close race, I can understand it bleeding over until the next day.
Frankly, I don't care how you vote. That is up to the States. The President does not want voting by mail. He is entitled to his opinion. I just disagree with him.
If the people of Alaska or the people of New York or the people of Florida want to vote by mail, that is up to them and their State legislatures. So within reason, I don't care how you vote. I just want to require those votes to be tallied by election night--on election night.
Now, this is all really easy for me to say, but the States run elections, and they run Federal elections. And it is really easy for me and all of us in the Senate to give them orders, but they have to have money to implement these rules.
And we have a budget resolution that was sent over to us by the House--a budget resolution can only deal with money--and I think we should take it up.
I am on the Budget Committee. Senator Ron Johnson is our chair. He is going to be a very able chair. We talked about it this morning. I think we need to take up that money bill, and I think part of it needs to be election integrity.
And I think we are going to have to--the whole purpose of that bill should be, and hopefully will be, to give our States--it is a money bill; it is a money issue--to give our States the financial resources to implement these two simple rules: You have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote, and you have to get those votes counted by election night.
The States are going to need resources, and that is the whole purpose of the so-called SAVE Act in the budget resolution. And we need to take it up now--now.
Now, it may be that we can put in a provision--I don't know; some big brains tell me it will work--that if we provide money to the States to implement election integrity, that if enough States participate, that it will become not just custom but law that these two rules apply.
Did I mention the two rules? You have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote, and that we need to have an election day not an election month.
It may be that the money provision can be crafted to provide that if enough States agree, that is going to become the policy for all States. I don't know if that is possible under the Budget Control Act, but I do know that the SAVE Act, right now--in addition to the two rules of election integrity that I talk about--involves money, and that is what we are going to try to do. It is to provide the States the money within the parameters of the Budget Control Act.
But we can't do it unless we can vote, and it would be nice if we could all agree. It would be nice if we could all have meetings and talk about it and give and take. I am all for that. But, right now, it is not realistic because people have differences of opinion.
Do you know what you do when you have a difference of opinion? You vote. That is why God made votes. That is why God made the U.S. Senate.
We can continue to sit around. It is also true of the Russia sanctions bill, but it is especially true with respect to election integrity. And I am not criticizing anybody. I know the way the Senate works, and the Presiding Officer does too. Senators will stall and restall and cuss and spit, and we need one more meeting.
I can't tell you how many meetings I have been in, in the last 6 months, that should have been an email, that could have been an email, to talk about the Russia sanctions bill and to talk about election integrity and to try to get a consensus. It is not going to happen--not in my natural lifetime, not in the Presiding Officer's, though you will live longer than me, and not in yours, our friends in the Gallery.
We have got to vote, and we need to vote right now. And the American people expect it.
And if there is a motion made on this floor to have us remain here until we get our work done, I am going to vote yes. I am going to vote yes. I can tell you right now. And what is the work we need to get done? In no particular order, we need to pass the Russia sanctions bill; we need to pass the budget resolution, which will include election integrity; we need to confirm Todd Blanche; we need to pass the continuing resolution to keep government open until December 11; and we need to vote on the cryptocurrency bill, which we have spent years on. And if we are waiting to take those votes to get a consensus, it is not going to happen.
Did I mention that is why God made votes? When reasonable people disagree, that is what we need to do.
Did I leave anything out, Madam President?
We need to get our business done, and then we can go on about our business.
I am not saying that people go home in August and just lie around the pool. I know that. I don't. The Presiding Officer doesn't. We go back, and we meet with constituents. Some people run for reelection. I am planning on being in all the battleground States, and I am anxious to get there to help my colleagues.
But we have to stay here and get our business done.
And that is it. My work here is done. I can show myself out.
And I may be wrong, but I doubt it. I think the American people are going to be really disappointed if we don't get our work done because it is not our work. It is their work.
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