NEW YORK – Today on CNBC’s Squawk Box, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) joined Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin to discuss the latest on the 2026 midterm elections, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the conflict in Iran, and the push to avoid ceding ground to China on artificial intelligence. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

On the 2026 Midterm Elections:

“The single most important thing to happen in the midterm elections is to maintain the majority in the Senate.”

“Keeping the Senate – just say, for example, if there’s another Supreme Court vacancy in President Trump’s last two years of office – keeping the majority in the Senate, I think, is critical, and I’m trying to do everything I can to help.”

“There’s going to be a lot of investigations by the House majority if the Democrats are in charge, which means there’s not going to be a lot of legislation done.”

“The most important things that need to be done and need to be done sooner rather than later, like permitting reform, obviously, we hope to do in the lame duck session.”

On Russia’s War with Ukraine:

“We should be supporting the victim, not the aggressor, in this conflict. Putin is a stone-cold killer, and he’s not going to change.”

“I don’t believe he’ll stop at Ukraine. He’s already threatening some of our NATO allies.”

“There’s a reason why we’ve had relative peace in Europe since World War II, and that’s because of the alliance between the United States and our European allies. And I think anything we do to undermine that or degrade that is a big mistake.”