{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=5A48E0A3-4DF9-4B11-911C-F00C4BFD0475", "Thune: Democrats Admit They\u2019re Allowing Families to Suffer for Political Leverage", "2025-10-28", "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 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\u201cGood afternoon, everyone.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not very often that I get a chance to say this, but I agree with the AFGE \u2013 American Federation of Government Employees, largest government employees union \u2013 who said earlier this week that the Democrats need to reopen the government and start getting federal employees paid again.\n\n\u201cAnd on that point, they are absolutely right.\n\n\u201cThis is going to get worse as the week goes on, as time goes on.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve already seen the impacts.\n\n\u201cFederal workers missed their first paycheck last Friday.\n\n\u201cATC employees are going to miss their paycheck today.\n\n\u201cIf by the end of the week this isn\u2019t over, there\u2019re going to be 40 million Americans who are not going to have food assistance.\n\n\u201cAnd you add on top of that Head Start and telehealth, there are people who are getting their medical appointments canceled because of the shutdown.\n\n\u201cAnd it just, it needs to end. It just needs to end.\n\n\u201cAnd we have made it abundantly clear \u2013 every elected official here has made it abundantly clear that we are more than happy to sit down with the Democrats and talk about other issues, whether it\u2019s the unaffordability and unsustainability of Obamacare, we\u2019re happy to have that conversation, but we can\u2019t do it with, as Chuck Schumer has said in the past, a gun to our heads.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s just, it\u2019s just that simple.\n\n\u201cSo they\u2019re going to have several opportunities, again, to vote to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cAnd I sincerely hope, in the best interest of every American who is impacted by this shutdown, and particularly those who are going to be really adversely impacted come this weekend, that enough Democrats will come to their senses and deliver the five votes that are necessary to get this bill on the president\u2019s desk.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll remind everybody, everybody knows it: This bill passed the House a month ago.\n\n\u201cIt is sitting at the desk in the Senate.\n\n\u201cWe can pick it up today, pass it, put it on the president\u2019s desk, it will be signed into law, the government reopens today.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s all it takes. And that\u2019s really what this is all about.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re trying to make it about other issues, and like I said, we\u2019re perfectly happy to have that conversation.\n\n\u201cI spoke with the president last night.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s happy to sit down with the Democrats next week to talk about Obamacare, but you can\u2019t do that when the government is shut down.\n\n\u201cThat would be subject, again, to them voting to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cSo let\u2019s hope that this week is the week in which enough sane Democrats come to the conclusion that it\u2019s not in their interest, and certainly not in the interest of the American people, to keep the government shut down.\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=5A48E0A3-4DF9-4B11-911C-F00C4BFD0475"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8339290507137775, "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"}