Watch Kennedy’s comments here.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) delivered the following remarks on the U.S. Senate floor:

“Well, the shutdown melodrama continues. I love the smell of melodrama in the morning. Smells like the United States Senate. I said the other day that this shutdown is just further proof that human evolution is a slow, slow process. This shutdown—what you’re witnessing now—is just further proof of why it took human beings thousands of years to learn how to stand upright.”

. . . 

“I believe in a two-party system, Mr. President. Why? Because two parties create competition, and competition makes all of us better. . . . The Democratic Party is competing within itself right now, and there is a distinct wing of the Democratic Party that is winning that competition. If I wanted to use a pejorative expression, I would call it the loon wing of the party . . . I think a more accurate description is to call it the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. . . . That [wing of the] party is in control.” 

. . .

“Now, my friend, Sen. Schumer, is the leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate, and he, of course, has instructed his colleagues to vote to shut down government, and Sen. Schumer has been criticized for that. . . . But I don’t think Sen. Schumer is the person in charge, because Sen. Schumer is not the leader of the socialist wing of his party. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is. She’s running the show. It was no accident the other day; the congresswoman let it slip. She said, ‘If you really want to negotiate an end to this shutdown, come see me.’”

. . .

“[T]he first thing that the socialists and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez [are] asking us to do is to repeal the health care reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We just passed them. . . . Now, we didn’t cut Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill. In fact, under our bill, Medicaid is going to increase 2% a year for the next ten years. Now, what we did by reforming Medicaid, which Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez wants us to reverse, [is] cut out the waste and fraud.”

. . . 

“What else do they want us to do? Well, they’re upset at us over the Affordable Care Act. . . . [B]ecause President Biden raised the [income] cap, we’ve got . . . families making $200,000 a year getting subsidies from the American taxpayer. Why? Because they said we needed it in the pandemic. The pandemic is over, and that’s why the Democrats, when they passed the bill, put in a provision that says, at the end of this year, those extra subsidies are going to end. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez says, ‘No. Until you agree . . . to let anybody at income level get subsidies, we’re going to shut government down.’”

. . .

“Now, those are the demands. I’ll mention one more. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez got very upset, as did the socialist wing of her party, when the president sent over what’s called a rescission package. Basically, President Trump just said, 'We want you to take some stuff out of the budget that we think is wasteful.' And we did, and that upset the congresswoman.”

. . . 

“[N]ow, that wing of her party and the congresswoman are threatening all other Democrats and saying, ‘You’ve got to shut government down until we get what we want.’”

. . .

“Now, let me say it again, Mr. President: I don’t hate anybody. This is America. I sure don’t hate the congresswoman. She is entitled to her opinion, but I’m entitled to mine, and she can criticize my policy positions, but I’m entitled to criticize hers. And I’m here to tell you, Mr. President, in front of God and country, based on her policy positions that she is demanding, . . . the American people are looking at the congresswoman and saying, with respect, ‘She must be bilingual; she must speak English and stupid.’” 

Watch Kennedy’s speech here.