Immediately following Bush's January 10 speech announcing the plan, Democratic politicians, including Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid and Dennis Kucinich,[38] called on Congress to reject the surge.[39] Senator Dick Durbin issued the Democratic response which called upon Iraqis to "disband the militias and death squads." On January 18, Xinhua News Agency reported that "whitehouse hopefuls" Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Barack Obama, D-Ill., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Joe Biden, D-Del, and Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, all voiced their discontent January 13 with the course of events in Iraq.[40]