{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=453953A9-7CA2-4FFD-9D09-67F3277C7649", "Thune Joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox News", "2025-10-05", "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", "Clickhere to watch.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.\n\nOn Congress\u2019 responsibility to fund the government:\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot to negotiate, Maria. The Democrats just need to open up the government. Right now, we\u2019re at a stalemate. They\u2019ve now voted four times. We\u2019ve given them the opportunity \u2013 a clean, nonpartisan, short-term funding resolution that continues government funding for the next seven weeks, and on four occasions now they\u2019ve voted against it.\n\n\u201cSo they\u2019ll get another chance on Monday to vote again, and I\u2019m hoping that some of them have a change of heart \u2026 What\u2019s happening here is the Democrats are trying to hijack a short-term, nonpartisan continuing resolution to fund the government merely for seven weeks, to give us an opportunity to get the appropriations process done \u2013 to try and get $1.5 trillion of new spending, make health care in this country, free health care available to noncitizens in this country, and guts a $50 billion rural hospital health fund that\u2019s designed to support rural hospitals.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019ve got on the table. That\u2019s [Democrats\u2019] proposal. It\u2019s a nonstarter. It\u2019s not serious, it\u2019s not reasonable, it\u2019s not realistic. Everybody knows that. The Democrats need to come to that realization and understand their option in front of them here is to open up the government, and then we can talk about all these other things they want to have a conversation about.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201c[Chuck Schumer\u2019s] rank-and-file members shouldn\u2019t follow his lead on this. This is where you need to separate from your leader and actually do the right thing for your constituents and for your country.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cThis is nonpartisan, we didn\u2019t put anything on it \u2013 no gimmicks, no policy riders. Just a straightforward resolution to keep the government open so we can continue the appropriations work that \u2026 both sides, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, want to do.\u201d\n\nOn the consequences of Democrats\u2019 shutdown:\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re talking about border patrol agents not getting paid, TSA agents not getting paid \u2026 You\u2019ve got programs like \u2026 food assistance for women and children that\u2019s being affected by this. At some point, this is going to start having real consequences \u2026\n\n\u201cThe administration is having to make decisions right now about how to move money around, which agencies and departments to prioritize in all this. And those are also decisions they\u2019re going to be costly to the American people and to a lot of the constituents of Democrats out there who continually vote to keep the government shut down.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cThe real sacrifice here, too, is all the other things we need to be doing \u2026 We\u2019ve got a defense authorization bill that\u2019s supposed to be on the floor. Appropriations bills. Permitting reform. All kinds of other things that are \u2026 swept aside and hanging in the balance now over this shutdown. So it\u2019s really a function, not only of opening up the government again, but it\u2019s also all the other things that Congress needs to be working on that we\u2019re not getting done right now.\u201d\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 shutdown hypocrisy:\n\n\u201cThis is a Schumer shutdown. Chuck Schumer instigated this at the behest of a bunch of far-left, liberal interest groups. But there are Democrats who are reaching out to Republicans, having conversations about how we might be able to get the government opened up again.\n\n\u201cSo hopefully the reasonable Democrats will prevail there and not \u2026 follow the lead of their leader \u2026 and walk down this path of a government shutdown, which is detrimental to the American people. And they know that, and this is a very costly endeavor for the Democrats to take, because it really does hurt people across this country, and it\u2019s a simple, straightforward proposition to get the government opened up again.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cRight now [Democrat] leadership is stuck, because these left-wing special interest groups are so adamant in their desire to fight President Trump, it\u2019s sort of this blind Trump Derangement Syndrome, if you will. They don\u2019t want to give the president a victory on anything. This is not giving him a victory \u2026 this is simply continuing to fund the government for the next seven weeks so we can continue the appropriations process. It really is, it\u2019s ironic, in a way, that this is where the Democrats have decided to pick their fight \u2026 Their liberal left is insisting on it, and so their leadership is being, you know, it\u2019s the tail wagging the dog right now.\n\n\u201cAll these things that [Democrats] want to do and that we\u2019re talking about, we\u2019re happy to have a conversation about, but that can\u2019t happen with the government shut down.\u201d\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 historic obstruction:\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t speak for their side. I don\u2019t understand their side. I certainly don\u2019t understand this strategy. I\u2019ve never seen something that seems like such a losing proposition, a losing hand, where you take hostage something you actually like, which is the federal government.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cThis is the new business model for the Democrats in the Senate. They have decided to take everything hostage because of their hatred for the president \u2026 I don\u2019t understand it. It is irrational to me. But there are people on their side for whom this Trump Derangement Syndrome is borderline pathological. There is just no other explanation for it. They just want to fight everything that the president is trying to get done.\u201d\n\nOn a peace deal in the middle east:\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re all very, very hopeful. I mean, please \u2026 let\u2019s get these hostages released \u2026 I give the president and his team great credit for sitting down and being able to work out this \u2013 work with the Israelis, work with other \u2026 neighbors in the region who care deeply about stability and peace in that area of the world \u2026\n\n\u201cI\u2019m skeptical, obviously, as always, of Hamas and any other terrorist organization, because \u2026 they, as a fundamental matter of their charter, want to eliminate and wipe out Israel on the map. And I think in the end, they need to disarm, and that\u2019s something I think that\u2019s being asked of them, which we\u2019ll see if they\u2019re \u2026 willing to follow through on.\n\n\u201cBut let\u2019s give the president credit. Hopefully this will be a deal that will result in a peaceful outcome in that region, and the elimination and obliteration of Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups that have been wreaking havoc there, literally now for decades.\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=453953A9-7CA2-4FFD-9D09-67F3277C7649"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8679500315338373, "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"}