Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said it’s never too late for Congress to do something about inflation, but Senate Republican Leadership has “dropped the ball” going into the 2026 midterm elections: KRISTEN WELKER: All right, so diesel prices at their highest ever. It is now Labor Day, of course. The regular, for a regular gallon of gas costs an averaging of $ 4.15. Do you believe Republicans will be punished at the polls for the price of gas? SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Well, here’s what I think about the economy for what it’s worth. Except for inflation, which as I said, sucks, the economy’s solid. Growth is okay, unemployment’s low. Wages, they’re going up, not as high as we’d like. Average income tax refund increased about 12%. Business profits are solid. We – we may – we created 136,000 jobs last year or last month. But look, that inflation is a big if. And it’s gutting people like a fish. Inflation is pernicious. And we’ve had it for a few years now. It’s been up and down since President Biden’s administration. What we ought to do is something about it. I’m not blaming it on the president or the House. The Senate Republicans, about five months ago, through a reconciliation bill, we should have addressed it. We didn’t for a couple reasons. Number one, I couldn’t convince the majority leader to put a bill like that on the floor. And number two, we’re probably three or four votes short. We’ve got a few Republicans that, on the Senate side, that are kind of like the feral kid in Mad Max 2. You’ve got to spend a little time with them. But we still have time. And I’ll be glad to talk about what we can do. But this inflation did not originate in a bat. I’ll be glad to talk about where it came from. And it’s not going to go away once the bat is dead. We’ve got to kill it ourselves. KRISTEN WELKER: Do you think there’s enough time to address inflation before November, Senator? SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Sure, sure, if we wanted to. I we wanted to. We can do anything we want to in, in reconciliation and ask the House to come back and do it. I’m not saying we will do – will do that. Certainly based on our record the last five or six months, it’s not likely. But look, you don’t have to be “John Maynard Friedman” to see what everybody else in America is seeing. These prices are gutting the middle class like a fish. And they expect Congress to address them. And we should have started five months ago. We didn’t. But we need to start talking about it now. That’s my opinion. I’m not putting anybody down. I’m labor. I’m not management. I don’t run the show. But if I did, if I did, we we would be on this issue, we’d be on this issue like a hobo on a ham sandwich. We would be all over inflation passing bills.

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