{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=43BFF203-09A2-4642-BECB-A8A0C4C5ECEB", "Thune: Democrats Block Bipartisan Defense Bill to Pay Our Troops", "2025-10-16", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Clickhereto watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cWell, Mr. President, the Democrat Party is the party that will not take \u2018yes\u2019 for an answer.\n\n\u201cWe offer Democrats a clean, nonpartisan CR \u2013 no Republican policies for them to swallow, nothing for them to object to.\n\n\u201cThey said no.\n\n\u201cWe offer to accommodate their health care demands by guaranteeing them a vote on their proposal if they vote to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cThe answer is no.\n\n\u201cOkay, fine.\n\n\u201cSo we thought, if they don\u2019t want to fund the government via continuing resolution, we\u2019ll give them the chance to fund the government a different way, by attempting to move forward with regular-order appropriations bills.\n\n\u201cAnd once again, the answer was no.\n\n\u201cDemocrats just voted to block the fiscal year 2026 defense appropriations bill \u2013 a bill, I would add, that passed the Senate Appropriations Committee by a robust bipartisan margin.\n\n\u201cTwenty-six to three, I think it was.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cAfter voting last week for an authorization bill to increase troop pay, Democrats just voted against the bill that would actually pay the troops.\n\n\u201cYou have to ask the question, \u2018Why?\u2019 Mr. President.\n\n\u201cBecause, to quote a recent news story \u2013 this is a direct quote \u2013 \u2018voting to proceed with the defense bill relinquishes some of the party\u2019s leverage.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Relinquishes some of the party\u2019s leverage.\u2019\n\n\u201cI mean, who really cares, right, if the troops are paid as long as the Democrats are able to get what they want?\n\n\u201cNow, Mr. President, I offered up \u2013 and I had conversations with Democrats here on the floor \u2013 that if we could get on the defense appropriations bill, the interest they have in adding other bills, I would certainly accommodate.\n\n\u201cAnd I suggested that that was the business model that we adopted when we passed the first three-bill package.\n\n\u201cWe got on the MilCon-VA appropriations bill, and then we worked collectively, both sides, to try and clear adding the Ag appropriations bill, the Leg Branch appropriations bill.\n\n\u201cWe tried to add the CJS appropriations bill, which was objected to by one member on the Democrat side.\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s how we fashioned getting these appropriation bills on the floor and getting them voted on.\n\n\u201cNow, if anything should be clear by now \u2013 if anything should be clear by now \u2013 it\u2019s that I am interested in doing a normal appropriations process!\n\n\u201cUnlike what happened when they had the majority, which was the Appropriations Committee would report bills out \u2013 11 of the 12 last year.\n\n\u201cNot a single one was brought to the floor of the Senate.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve done three bills.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to go to conference on them.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re blocking that!\n\n\u201cSo now we bring up the defense appropriations bill, something that should get 80 votes on the floor of the Senate, that, as I said, came out of the committee 26-3 \u2013 and they\u2019re blocking it.\n\n\u201cNow, there\u2019s a path forward here to do appropriations: Get on the bill.\n\n\u201cAnd then we\u2019ll try and add other appropriations bills as we work with both sides to clear objections and concerns that people have.\n\n\u201cThe fact of the matter is, Mr. President, they didn\u2019t have to block us even moving to the bill, because there are multiple opportunities \u2013 60-vote threshold opportunities \u2013 for them to block it later on if they don\u2019t like what happens.\n\n\u201cThis is politics!\n\n\u201cIf anything was needed to demonstrate just how fundamentally uninterested Democrats are in supporting our troops \u2013 and defending our country \u2013 just take a look at this vote!\n\n\u201cMere months ago, Mr. President \u2013 I say, mere months ago \u2013 Democrats were complaining about all the damage shutdowns do to hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cI literally could fill the rest of this hour with Democrat quotes from the past few years about the devastating impacts of shutdowns.\n\n\u201cNow?\n\n\u201cDemocrats couldn\u2019t care less.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re happy to sacrifice any American and evidently any principle to their political goals.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats like to position themselves as the party of the little guy and the defender of hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cBut, as this vote makes clear, who do Democrats really care about?\n\n\u201cDemocrats.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "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=43BFF203-09A2-4642-BECB-A8A0C4C5ECEB"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.4807299487292767, "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"}