{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-congress-has-important-work-ahead-starting-with-government-funding/", "Thune: Congress Has Important Work Ahead, Starting With Government Funding", "2026-08-04", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cBusy week in the Senate, a lot going on, \u2026 we\u2019re juggling a lot of balls right now.\n\n\u201cBut there are some things that we intend to get done this week, and the first is to ensure that we get about 75 of the president\u2019s nominations through en bloc.\n\n\u201cAnd so there are a number of very qualified nominees that the president has put forward, and if we can get those across the finish line this week \u2013 and we intend to \u2013 that would put us on pace to have 95 percent of the president\u2019s nominees done.\n\n\u201cAnd that is a rate that puts us ahead of every [incoming administration] going back for the last 25 years \u2026\n\n\u201cAnd I think there were somewhere on the order, in the last Trump administration at this point, of about 155 nominees that hadn\u2019t been acted on or confirmed, and this would have \u2026 that number at about six.\n\n\u201cSo we\u2019re going to be way ahead of pace of the historical average, and I think that\u2019s really important to ensure the president has his people in place so that he can do the job the American people elected him to do.\n\n\u201cThe other thing, of course, that we need to do is to fund the government.\n\n\u201cAnd credit to Chair Collins and her team, working with Democrats and Republicans to come up with a plan that will fund the government beyond the election into December.\n\n\u201cWe were able to get on that bill last night with a very big bipartisan vote, and I hope we can continue down that path and ensure that we have funded the government, taken a government shutdown off the table.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve had two of those, as you know, in the last year.\n\n\u201cThey are incredibly painful for the American people, and it\u2019s important, in my view, that we demonstrate to the American people that we can do job one \u2013 and job one is ensuring that their federal government is working and funded.\n\n\u201cSo that will also be something that between now and the end of this week, or however long we\u2019re here, we intend to accomplish.\n\n\u201cAnd so we will keep you posted on other things. There are other issues out there.\n\n\u201cWe had a discussion about some of them at lunch, and we\u2019ll continue to have those conversations and figure out, as we attempt, at least, to get these things stacked up and get as many things done as possible that we stay on pace to do that.\u201d", 1, "2026-08-05T07:37:37Z", "2026-08-05T07:38:44Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-congress-has-important-work-ahead-starting-with-government-funding/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5727661084383726, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}