{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=17293B1D-7FD3-40EE-8A3D-6D5B6195CFF3", "Thune: Harris Can Reverse Her Positions, But Not Her Record", "2024-09-11", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor to contrast Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 recent policy flip-flops with the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s record of high prices, open borders, and weakness on the global stage. Thune noted that the American people need look no further than the last four years to see what Democrat governance would look like for the next four.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, before I begin, I want to just take a moment to acknowledge what today is \u2013 23 years since terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.\n\n\u201cAnd 23 years since a heroic group of Americans prevented even greater tragedy by bringing down a fourth hijacked plane before it could crash into another target.\n\n\u201cAs on every September 11 since that black day, we remember the heroes who rose up \u2013 at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and in that bare field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.\n\n\u201cAnd we mourn all those who were lost.\n\n\u201cMy prayers as always are with the families of all those who still grieve their fallen loved ones \u2013 and with all those whose calling is to respond to danger, and stand between us and terror.\n\n********\n\n\u201cMr. President, there\u2019s been a dizzying amount of change in the Democrat Party over the past couple of months.\n\n\u201cFirst, obviously, there was the replacement of President Biden with Kamala Harris on the ticket.\n\n\u201cDemocrat voters who had gone to the polls in the primaries and cast a vote for President Biden were informed that in fact the delegates they had chosen would be supporting Vice President Harris instead.\n\n\u201cThat was a big change, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cBut not the only one.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s also the new Democrat nominee\u2019s attempt to reinvent herself.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been five short years since Kamala Harris was running for president in the Democrat primary as a leftist.\n\n\u201cShe endorsed, among other things, a ban on fracking, taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgeries for detained immigrants, decriminalizing drug possession, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, mandatory buybacks of certain guns \u2026 I could go on.\n\n\u201cOf course, none of that was a big surprise, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cAfter all, then-Senator Harris \u2013 a supporter of a government takeover of health care and the budget-busting Green New Deal \u2013 regularly made lists of most liberal senators.\n\n\u201cBut what is surprising, Mr. President, is the apparent 180-degree flip she has made in the past \u2013 well, seven weeks or so I guess.\n\n\u201cShe opposed a border wall \u2013 now she apparently supports one.\n\n\u201cShe supported a ban on fracking \u2013 well, now she opposes one.\n\n\u201cShe supported Medicare for All, the federal takeover of health care \u2013 now she says she won\u2019t push for it if she\u2019s president.\n\n\u201cShe supported mandatory gun buybacks \u2013 now she won\u2019t push for them.\n\n\u201cShe supported an electric vehicle mandate \u2013 now apparently she doesn\u2019t.\n\n\u201cAnd I could go on!\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s amazing what a brief seven weeks or so can do.\n\n\u201cOr perhaps I should say it\u2019s amazing what getting nominated for president can do.\n\n\u201cBut it seems that despite her apparent move to the center, progressive voters should not be alarmed.\n\n\u201cA far-left compatriot of the vice president\u2019s, the senior senator from Vermont, whose Medicare for All government health care takeover she cosponsored, was asked on Meet the Press last weekend whether he thought Vice President Harris was abandoning her progressive ideals.\n\n\u201c\u2018No,\u2019 he answered, \u2018I don\u2019t think she\u2019s abandoning her ideals. I think she\u2019s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I think she\u2019s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.\u2019\n\n\u201cI suspect he\u2019s right \u2013 and I suspect that one of the Senate\u2019s most liberal senators would quickly become one of the nation\u2019s most liberal presidents.\n\n\u201cAnd I think it\u2019s fair to say we\u2019ve gotten a taste over the last four years of what government with Kamala Harris looks like.\n\n\u201cAnd so far it mostly looks like a historic inflation crisis, a raging border crisis, and uncertainty on the global stage.\n\n\u201cAnd when I say the past four years have looked like a historic inflation crisis and a raging border crisis, I do mean the past four years.\n\n\u201cInflation started spiking within two months of President Biden and Vice President Harris taking office, thanks in large part to Democrats\u2019 American Rescue Plan spending spree (a spending spree, I might add, for which Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote).\n\n\u201cAnd almost four years later inflation is STILL above the Federal Reserve\u2019s target inflation rate.\n\n\u201cAmericans are now paying a staggering $13,000 more a year just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed when President Biden and Vice President Harris took office.\n\n\u201c$13,000.\n\n\u201cVice President Harris recently said in her speech at the Democrat National Convention that her administration would work on lowering the cost of everyday needs like groceries.\n\n\u201cWell, Mr. President, why hasn\u2019t she tried that already?\n\n\u201cShe\u2019s not an outsider coming into office; she\u2019s been in office for the past four years.\n\n\u201cIf there was something she thought she could do to bring down prices, why hasn\u2019t she done it already?\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, Democrats\u2019 nearly four-year inflation crisis has been matched by the Biden-Harris border crisis.\n\n\u201cBorder numbers started spiking almost immediately after President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, after they sent the message on day one that border security was at the bottom of their priority list.\n\n\u201cAnd the ensuing crisis has raged for almost the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration, until fears of losing reelection prompted President Biden to at last take some too-little-too-late action this summer.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I could go on, and talk about the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan \u2013 or the deep uncertainty on the world stage that has characterized their tenure.\n\n\u201cI could also talk about the ways they are putting us on track for an energy crisis.\n\n\u201cBut I\u2019ll stop here.\n\n\u201cSuffice it to say that after the past four years, no one has to wonder what Democrat governance would look like.\n\n\u201cAnd I hope our country \u2013 and American families \u2013 will be spared another four years of it.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:46:43Z"]], "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/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=17293B1D-7FD3-40EE-8A3D-6D5B6195CFF3"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4811560977250338, "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"}