Sen. Elizabeth Warren sharply criticized the Republican-backed SAVE Act during a Senate floor speech, arguing it could make voting harder for millions of eligible Americans and describing it as "Jim Crow 2.0." Warren also accused the Trump administration and congressional Republicans of using the debate to divert attention from the conflict involving Iran and rising consumer costs. Watch the full remarks, key arguments, and the political battle shaping the debate ahead of the midterm elections.
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00:00I've heard this bill called Jim Crow 2.0, harking back to the days in the South when
00:06the South blocked black people from being able to vote with a whole series of tests and barriers
00:12so that they just wouldn't have a chance to vote. Republicans in Congress know that they
00:19are in deep trouble for the midterms unless they can rig the rules and pick their own voters.
00:25Donald Trump even said it himself. Donald Trump is trying to stop American citizens from voting.
00:32Why? Because he knows his agenda is unpopular and that Republicans can't win based on what
00:40he's doing, so he wants to rig the election by picking his own voters. And that is what
00:46the SAVE Act is all about. Don't let Trump and the Republicans in Congress fool you.
00:53They'll say things like, hey, you have to show an ID to vote, you should have to show
00:59an ID to vote, just like you have to do to buy a beer. But this is not an ordinary
01:05voter
01:06ID bill. This is not a bill that says everybody either has to show a driver's license or a
01:12student ID to vote. This is a way to keep American citizens from voting. And I will just give you
01:18one example around this. If this bill passes, then in 45 of the 50 states, your driver's license
01:29won't count as a valid ID. And then it gets better. Let's say you're a married woman who
01:37lives in Massachusetts. And let's say that when you got married, you took your husband's
01:41name. Well, when you go to the polls to vote, you can't register by showing them your updated
01:49driver's license. Why? Because Massachusetts is one of the 45 states where a driver's license
01:57does not prove citizenship. So you bring along your birth certificate. Shows you were born in
02:04the United States. Can you vote now? Nope. Your birth certificate is still under your maiden
02:09name. So yeah, you can use a passport if you have one. But remember, fewer than half of all
02:16Americans have a passport. And it costs $165 to get one. And it takes a month or two if everything
02:26is working on time. No passport and no birth certificate that matches your driver's license.
02:31Well, Trump and the Republicans say you're just out of luck. And that's just one example
02:38of how this bill will actually make it harder for Americans to vote. Here's another deeply
02:45disturbing thing about this bill. It would require states to hand over sensitive information about
02:52voters to Trump's Department of Homeland Security so that some shadowy guys can do whatever they
03:01want with it. Maybe they take you off the voter rolls. Maybe they use that information for
03:07something else. The point is, nobody really knows what will happen. This is an agency whose
03:14former leader, Kristi Noem, said just a few weeks ago, quote, we need to make sure that we
03:21have the right people voting. So just make a guess who's going to get swept off the voter rolls.
03:29It's people that the Republicans think are likely to vote Democratic. So sweep off black people,
03:37sweep off brown people, sweep off women, sweep off students, sweep off people in precincts that
03:43voted Democratic last time. Sweep off people that you think might vote Democratic in the upcoming
03:51election. I've heard this bill called Jim Crow 2.0, harking back to the days in the South when the
04:00South
04:00blocked black people from being able to vote with a whole series of tests and barriers so that they
04:07just wouldn't have a chance to vote. The Trump bill is Jim Crow 2.0. Non-citizen voting is extremely
04:18rare
04:19and American Republicans know that. They've seen the same data that we have. Voter roll audits in
04:25Georgia prior to the 2024 election found only 20 registered non-citizens out of 8.2 million registered
04:37voters. That is 0.00024%. A 2024 Michigan audit found only 16 non-citizen votes out of 5.7 million
04:54votes.
04:55That's 0.00028%. So then what's going on? Why are the Republicans doing this? Why are they chewing up
05:08all of this time in the United States Senate to do this? Well, we don't have to guess because the
05:15Republicans have been saying the quiet part out loud. Republicans in Congress know that they are in deep
05:23trouble for the midterms unless they can rig the rules and pick their own voters. Donald Trump
05:31even said it himself. He said passing the SAVE Act will, quote, guarantee the midterms. Because the
05:39Republicans know, and Donald Trump knows, that the policies that they are shoving through right now
05:46are wildly unpopular. So while Trump and Republicans try to spread conspiracies and lie about the SAVE Act,
05:56it's important that each and every one of us stays focused on what the Trump administration is really
06:04doing. And here's what the Trump administration is really doing. After promising no more wars, Donald Trump has
06:14dragged the United States into an illegal and reckless war with Iran. That's lie number one. Already, at least
06:24200 American service members have been hurt. 13 service members have lost their lives. There are American
06:33lives lost and families grieving because Donald Trump dragged us into a war based on lies. A war launched without
06:43an imminent threat to our country and without any end in sight. Now, when he ran for president, Trump
06:53promised no wars. In fact, he kept saying he would be the, quote, president of peace. He lied. The U
07:04.S. is
07:05spending at least a billion dollars a day on war with Iran. If we put the money that we're using
07:14at war
07:14with Iran toward health care, we could lower costs for millions of Americans. Just this week, Donald
07:21Trump's own energy secretary said out loud, quote, we were very aware that we would cause a little bit of
07:30increased prices on Americans. Think about that. Trump and his top officials knew that this war would raise costs
07:40for Americans. And they did it anyway. In just the first six days of the war, the Trump administration spent
07:48an
07:48estimated $11.3 billion. That was in six days. We also lost three F-15 aircraft in just those first
08:00few days. That will cost us
08:02another $300 million. And estimates say that the Trump administration has kept burning about a billion dollars, taxpayer dollars, a
08:13day, on the war in Iran. And now we are on day 18.
08:19Some estimates look more like $2 billion a day. That's over $23,000 every second. Something like
08:31$11.5 million since I started this speech. So let's look at Trump's warmongering by the numbers.
08:43$11.3 billion, the estimated cost of the first six days of Trump's war. $5.6 billion, the cost of
08:52munitions spent by the Pentagon in the first two days of the war.
08:56$300 million, the cost to replace three F-15s lost to friendly fire in the first week of the war.
09:05$50 billion, how much the Trump administration says it wants to add to an already
09:11massively inflated defense budget to pay for a war that was never authorized by Congress. $1 trillion, the Pentagon's budget
09:21this year.
09:22$1.5 trillion, the total amount that Trump is reportedly requesting for the Pentagon budget for next year. That means
09:32Republicans in Congress want to
09:35increase the Pentagon's budget to increase the Pentagon's budget by $500 billion.
09:42Now, to put these numbers in context, the Trump administration will spend $30 billion in just the first 30 days
09:51of the war.
09:52That is exactly how much we could have used to lower costs for millions of people for an entire year,
10:01people who got knocked off their health care or saw their premiums go up because of Trump's health care cuts.
10:08So instead of going to war with Iran, we could lower health care costs and actually save lives here at
10:16home.
10:17Here's one more. $12 billion, a number we've already passed. $12 billion is what it would cost to restore the
10:26expanded child tax credit for one year.
10:28So in less than two weeks of Donald Trump's war, we spent the same amount of money that would have
10:36lifted millions of kids out of poverty.
10:39For the same amount the U.S. is burning on just one single day of Donald Trump's reckless war with
10:47Iran,
10:47we could provide a full year's worth of food assistance for nearly half a million Americans.
10:54Or Medicaid coverage for 300,000 children.
11:00But there's one more thing we could have done with the $12 billion the Trump administration has spent on war
11:07with Iran.
11:08We could have provided housing assistance for around a million Americans.
11:13We could have lowered prescription drug costs for tens of millions of people.
11:19We could have paid the entire National Park Service for more than three years.
11:25We could have given Pell grants to 1.6 million students so they could afford to go to college.
11:32We could have provided retirement and disability pay for veterans wounded in combat and still had plenty of money left
11:40over.
11:40We could have helped pay the salaries of more than 100,000 teachers and nurses, two jobs that are crucial
11:47and where we've seen shortages.
11:49We could have funded Direct File, the program that lets Americans file their taxes online and for free.
11:55We could have funded that for two whole decades.
11:59We could have provided humanitarian assistance for countries around the world for almost three full years.
12:06That is a huge amount of money.
12:09And I want to talk about one more thing we could be spending taxpayer money on instead of Trump's reckless
12:16war in Iran.
12:18Making child care more affordable for families.
12:22Here's the thing.
12:24People have been getting child care all wrong.
12:27Child care costs are painfully high.
12:31Right now, families are having to choose between breaking the budget, being forced to cut back on work hours,
12:38or settling for lower quality care just to ensure that their kids have a safe place to be while the
12:45parents are working.
12:47In 49 of the 50 states, families pay more for child care for their two kids than they do for
12:54rent.
12:55And the reason why costs are so high is that right now people think of child care as a privilege
13:02or as a service that's for sale.
13:06That is wrong.
13:07We should be thinking of universal child care as basic public infrastructure.
13:13We should be thinking about it the same way we think about roads and highways.
13:18Why?
13:18Because for this country to work, we need to care for our kids.
13:23And when parents don't have child care, they can't go to work.
13:28Investing in universal child care is also good for our kids' development.
13:33And it is good for our economy.
13:36We need affordable child care just as much as we need schools to educate our workers,
13:42and bridges to connect goods to the market.
13:44It's basic infrastructure to make this country run.
13:49It is the infrastructure we need to thrive.
13:52And up until now, our nation just hasn't been thinking about child care that way.
13:58This is why we need to invest in child care for every family.
14:04You know, it's just basic supply and demand.
14:06There are a whole bunch of families that need child care, but there are a whole lot fewer child care
14:12workers.
14:13Normally, when we want to attract more workers to an area, we just pay them more.
14:18But child care prices are already sky high, and families just can't afford it.
14:24So where does that leave us?
14:26There's a huge gap that the federal government needs to fill.
14:31Imagine, if the federal government didn't invest in roads and bridges, we just wouldn't have them.
14:37And that's what's happening with child care.
14:40And it's why we need to invest in universal child care and raise wages for child care workers.
14:47They should at least make the same amount as local public school teachers.
14:51In the wealthiest country on this planet, accessible access to affordable, high-quality child care and early childhood education should
15:02not be a privileged reserve for the rich.
15:05It should be a right.
15:07But instead of talking about lowering child care costs, Donald Trump is delivering a punch to the gut to every
15:16parent struggling with those costs.
15:19Donald Trump is spending billions of dollars a week bombing Iran for reasons he cannot explain,
15:26but he cannot find a nickel to help the millions of people who are struggling to pay for health care,
15:34groceries, or child care.
15:36But this is a one-two punch.
15:38The Trump administration is spending a tremendous amount of money on war, and the war is also driving up costs
15:48for Americans.
15:50Take the price of gasoline over the past month.
15:53For months, Donald Trump has been saying gas prices are going down.
15:58He has been loud and proud about it.
16:01Right now, the average price for gas is more than $3.70 a gallon.
16:07More than $0.80 higher per gallon than just one month ago when Donald Trump started this war.
16:14That's more than a 25% increase in gas prices in a single month, which Donald Trump called a very
16:23small price to pay.
16:25Whoa, spoken like a billionaire.
16:28We have not seen gas prices jump this much since Russia attacked Ukraine.
16:33And now, Donald Trump's war is choking off the Strait of Hormuz.
16:38That's where about one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas supply comes through, and right now, it's all
16:46bottled up.
16:47So what does that mean?
16:48Trump's war with Iran means gas prices are skyrocketing for American families here at home.
16:55And Donald Trump's response, if they rise, they rise.
17:01In other words, he just doesn't care.
17:05Here's another one.
17:07Food prices.
17:08About a third of the world's fertilizer goes through that same Strait of Hormuz.
17:14And the prices jumped up by 30% in the days after Trump started this war.
17:20One U.S. farmer even said his fertilizer suppliers are warning that they just can't get the fertilizer.
17:27It's not only the price has gone up, it just literally is not available.
17:31So you've got all this fertilizer that can't go through the Strait of Hormuz, can't make it to our farmers
17:36here in America.
17:38And without that fertilizer, the farmers say they just can't plant as much food this year.
17:44And what's that going to mean?
17:46It means food prices will go up.
17:48So, that's gasoline, that's food.
17:51But the prices of clothes, of technology, basically anything that's moved around by trucks that use gasoline or diesel,
18:02the prices for all of those goods will go up as well.
18:05Diesel prices are already up by more than 25%, raising the cost of shipping goods, including Amazon packages and food,
18:16nationwide.
18:16And jet fuel prices have shot up by 58% since Trump started the war.
18:24Airlines are passing these costs on to consumers by pushing ticket prices up even higher.
18:31Donald Trump's war with Iran is gearing up to become another forever war that burns billions of taxpayer dollars
18:40and makes life even more expensive for Americans here at home.
18:46This is a war that the American people do not want and did not ask for, but they're the ones
18:53who are footing the bill.
18:55And what does Trump administration have to say about that?
18:59Well, listen to Trump's top economic advisor.
19:03He said, quote,
19:05If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all.
19:12It would hurt consumers.
19:14And we'd have to think about what we'd want to do about that.
19:17But that's really the last of our concerns right now.
19:23Consumers.
19:23The last of our concerns.
19:26Higher prices for your family, the last of our concerns, according to the Trump administration.
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