Kennedy urges Senate to reopen DHS, pass SAVE America Act through reconciliation: “We wouldn’t need 60 votes”

Watch Kennedy's comments here.

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today urged his colleagues to consider passing funding for the Department of Homeland Security and the SAVE America Act through reconciliation in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.

Key excerpts of the speech are below.

"It is a fact that the Karen wing of the Democratic Party is in ascendency, and it is firmly in control. And any Democrat, we all know this, that agrees to any kind of compromise with respect to ICE is going to be punished the rest of their natural lives. They can't do it, and they're not going to.

"Now, we can keep having meetings and discussing it. We've been doing it for weeks. Most of these meetings could easily be accomplished with an email. And I've been part of the discussions in our conference. I'm convinced that listening to the same thing over and over and over again is lowering my IQ when we know that nothing is going to resolve this because my Democratic friends politically can't agree to a compromise about ICE.

"So, here's what I think we ought to do: I think that we should accept the Democrats' offer to open up TSA and to open up FEMA and to open up the Coast Guard and to open up and fund CISA, and let's get that done. Let's shorten these [TSA] lines, and then the day after we do that, Republicans need to file a reconciliation bill-the same way we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill-and on our own, we need to come up with a budget for ICE. It's the only way to solve this problem."

. . .

"I would include the SAVE Act as part of that reconciliation bill, as well. We wouldn't need 60 votes. We wouldn't need 55 votes. We'd only need 51 votes. We passed the One Big Beautiful Bill with 50 votes and the vice president breaking the tie. . . . I would go get a really smart lawyer and ask them to help us craft a SAVE Act that can survive a Byrd bath. I would do those two things in reconciliation or at least open up ICE through reconciliation."

Watch Kennedy's speech here.