{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-discusses-the-importance-of-russia-sanctions-legislation/", "Thune Discusses the Importance of Russia Sanctions Legislation", "2026-07-29", "2026", "2026-07", "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\u201cWith the tragic and sudden passing of Senator Graham, the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have joined together to cosponsor the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s legislation that I hope we can move across the floor.\n\n\u201cIt was probably, I would say, in Lindsey\u2019s last days, the thing he cared most passionately about.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s something he\u2019s worked on for the past year, and I think we all, both Democrats and Republicans, realize not only would this be a great tribute to him and his work and his legacy on national security matters, but it would also be something that would really give the president a tool at his disposal to try and end the war in Ukraine.\n\n\u201cUkraine is now the largest conflict, literally, since World War II in Europe.\n\n\u201cAnd the Ukrainian people have been resilient, worked really, really hard to try and bring this war to an end.\n\n\u201cBut as long as Putin has Russian oil and gas money, he\u2019s able to continue this war.\n\n\u201cAnd what this sanctions bill would do would basically cut that off.\n\n\u201cAnd Lindsey also cared passionately, as you know, about the Middle East, and so the sanctions on Iran, I think, complement what\u2019s in the underlying bill.\n\n\u201cBut the fact is, there are 62 cosponsors on the bill.\n\n\u201cWe had a motion to proceed vote on it yesterday that got 86 votes in the Senate.\n\n\u201cIt is a bipartisan bill.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s an important bill for this country and for our national security interests, and it\u2019s something that I hope we can proceed with and ultimately pass, get across the finish line here in the next few days.\u201d", 1, "2026-07-30T07:32:48Z", "2026-07-30T07:34:08Z"]], "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-discusses-the-importance-of-russia-sanctions-legislation/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7976160850375891, "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"}