{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-democrats-must-stop-obstructing-fisa-reauthorization-help-to-quickly-confirm-jay-clayton/", "Thune: Democrats Must Stop Obstructing FISA Reauthorization, Help to Quickly Confirm Jay Clayton", "2026-06-16", "2026", "2026-06", "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\u201cJay Clayton is an eminently qualified individual to become the new director of national intelligence, and so we are looking forward to processing him this week.\n\n\u201cChairman Cotton, they will be \u2026 having his confirmation hearing tomorrow \u2026 and hopefully reporting him out later in the week.\n\n\u201cIt would take cooperation among the Democrats in order to get him confirmed this week, but in my view, at least, he has all the qualifications that are necessary, has the vision, the experience, the judgment, the competence \u2013 all the things that you want in that position.\n\n\u201cAnd so I\u2019m hopeful the Democrats will cooperate and enable us to get him into this position and get him confirmed there quickly.\n\n\u201cAnd that, of course, has not been a given.\n\n\u201cYou look at the fact that this president, President Trump, is the first president in history not to have a civilian nominee confirmed either by voice vote or unanimous consent.\n\n\u201cThat is truly, truly unprecedented.\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s been the Democrat practice and pattern \u2026 in this current administration.\n\n\u201cBut I hope that they will waive that for this and allow us to get this done, because I think that also unlocks the 702 process.\n\n\u201cAnd as most of you know, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act\u2019s 702 program is the most successful tool when it comes to keeping people and this country safe.\n\n\u201cAnd we are currently lapsed, and that also is unprecedented, and we are lapsed because the Democrats block voted \u2013 block voted \u2013 against a bipartisan deal that had been worked out between members here in the Senate and the House, Democrats and Republicans, and so it is now currently not an authorized program.\n\n\u201cThat needs to be changed, it needs to be fixed quickly, and I hope that the Democrats will work with us in order to make that happen.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s going to be certainly something that\u2019s front and center for the balance of this week.\u201d", 1, "2026-06-18T06:41:00Z", "2026-06-18T06:43:25Z"]], "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-democrats-must-stop-obstructing-fisa-reauthorization-help-to-quickly-confirm-jay-clayton/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6108059789985418, "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"}