Transcript: Senator John Kennedy on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” September 27, 2026

The following is the transcript of the interview with Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, broadcast on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on September 27, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We now turn to Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy. Good morning to you, senator. Senator, the president seems to be interested in diplomacy. The US president also seems somewhat interested, but the Wall Street Journal also reports that President Trump may have a secret plan to restart the bombing campaign in Iran after the midterm elections. It’s in 37 days. Do you support this resumption of bombing?

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the classified information. Iran- Iran recently made an offer to the president. It wasn’t a serious offer. The president is not Bambi’s little brother. He refused. We have to keep doing what we’re doing. The sanctions, the blockade. The truth is, if you’re being fair, Iran is a wound in the chest and the world is safer because of it. Its public and private sectors are held together with duct tape and pin. Now there’s… there’s only one problem. The strait is at least partially closed, which has affected the price of oil and all petroleum products, including gasoline. And… and it’s extremely painful. And we must either find a way to resolve this matter, or open the strait, or make the situation worse. I wouldn’t send troops. We could send troops and open the strait. But once you send them, you have to leave them there. And that creates a whole new set of problems.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and the broader question of to what end, since the president has said, you know, Iran is about to capitulate any day now. But when we look at the political situation in Iowa and Michigan, we’ve seen Republican candidates who will be on the ballot in November calling for an end to the war in Iran. In the Senate, we have seen 14 objection votes so far, two of which passed. I mean, I know it’s symbolic, but it speaks to the frustration within your own party here. Should the president be more attentive to public opinion?

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, look, here’s… none of this is advanced calculus. Here… I have… I have… I have been to almost every battleground state helping my friends. Here’s what I learned. When… when moms and dads go to sleep at night and can’t, they don’t sit there wondering if the football coaches are happy or if the press is biased or the other things that we’ve talked about. They worry about the cost of living.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SEN. KENNEDY: And they’re a little worried about Iran because they don’t understand why, but they know the two are inextricably linked. And we need to be up front and address these issues. Here are my midterm exam predictions, Margaret. The experts will be wrong. They almost always are. No, no, none of these guys ever campaigned in their natural lives. It’s going to be close. It would help if the president remained focused on the cost of living. And I would love to see him give a speech nationally.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SEN. KENNEDY: Or let Rubio and General Caine do it and explain why we went to Iran, why we’re winning and how we’re going to get out.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah. You’ve been making this recommendation for some time. You did it the last time you were with us this summer. The White House hasn’t done it yet, but…

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, well, the-the-the president doesn’t take orders from me. He barely accepts suggestions. But I’m pretty persistent and will continue to recommend it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about something else that the executive branch just did without Congress. On Friday, the White House informed congressional leaders that he, the president, had unilaterally canceled nearly $1 billion in congressionally approved funds and that he had done so without congressional consent. You’re sitting on credits. Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins said it was the latest attempt to undermine Congress’s constitutional power over money and was a blatant violation of the law. She wants to act against these illegal actions. Do you share his concern? Will you join his efforts?

SEN. KENNEDY: I love… I love Susan like a taco, but she’s wrong. First, Congress hasn’t approved this stuff. When Congress appropriates money, we do so in broad categories of care. For example, I am inventing $250 million to improve relations with sub-Saharan Africa. And then the money goes to the bureaucracy. And very often, bureaucracy wastes it. Spending on porn is what I call it. This is how we ended up with millions of dollars for circumcisions in Zambia and electric buses in Rwanda.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you’re okay with that?

SEN. KENNEDY: What the president – yeah, that’s fine with me. And if you read what Russ Vought actually wants to eliminate, what he wants to eliminate is aid to NGOs that support illegal immigration. And he also wants to eliminate part of the money that the bureaucracy has decided to devote to repaying, not our debt, but the foreign debt. This stuff is spent porn. Congress did not approve it. Now Susan is concerned that they are doing this with NIH grants. I don’t think they should do it with NIH grants, but it’s spent porn they’re cutting…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SEN. KENNEDY: – and Congress should be – Congress should get up off its icy, lazy ass and cut it off itself. But since we are not…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SEN. KENNEDY: –I’m glad- I’m glad Russ Vought is doing it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You talk about concerns about wasteful spending.

SEN. KENNEDY: Yeah.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You were very vocal in your questions to then-Secretary Kristi Noem about some of the ads DHS ran using taxpayer dollars to boost its public image. Our viewers will see a 30-second commercial on this program. It’s on all the major networks, it’s also on the cable networks. It highlights President Trump, and one voice praises him as, quote, “the toughest, most resilient person I’ve ever met.” And at the end it says “paid for by the US government”. Is this the best use of taxpayer dollars?

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, first of all, as far as Secretary Noem is concerned, what she did was stupid. she spent $220 million on ads about her, and I called her out. Number two…

MARGARET BRENNAN: This sounds like an ad about President Trump.

SEN. KENNEDY: I don’t, I was just going to say, Margaret, I don’t think any public official, including President Trump, Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private advertisements for themselves. Now, the White House sees it differently, but I don’t think – I think there should be a rule that you can’t – well, there probably is a rule – you can’t spend public money to promote yourself. I’m going to… I might end up with a sombrero on my head, but I also think we should have a rule that no politician…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SEN. KENNEDY: – may have a building named after him during his lifetime. I think that would settle a lot of this controversy.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SEN. KENNEDY: We have this rule in Louisiana. It works pretty well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’ll be watching, senator, if you bring that forward. Thank you for your time this morning. Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us.