{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=5E5470DF-355B-492E-ADBA-AB20E37E9492", "Thune: Schumer Shutdown Day 21", "2025-10-21", "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\u201cMr. President, three weeks.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been three weeks since Democrats shut down the government.\n\n\u201cSince Democrats chose to put the demands of far-left activists ahead of serving the American people.\n\n\u201cAnd over the last three weeks, Mr. President, it\u2019s the American people who have borne the consequences of Democrats\u2019 shutdown.\n\n\u201cThousands of flights have been delayed.\n\n\u201cNutrition assistance for millions of needy families is in jeopardy.\n\n\u201cMilitary families are turning to food banks in \u2018unprecedented\u2019 numbers.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats are apparently willing to prolong the suffering until their far-left base is satisfied.\n\n\u201cMr. President, we\u2019ve given Democrats here in the Senate numerous opportunities to end the shutdown.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve held, now, 11 votes on a clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution to end the shutdown and the pain that comes with it.\n\n\u201cAnd they said no every time.\n\n\u201cWe gave Democrats an opportunity to consider the bipartisan defense appropriations bill \u2013 something that, I might add, passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 26-3, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote.\n\n\u201cWe gave them an opportunity to consider that here on the floor, so we can at least protect our national security and pay our troops.\n\n\u201cDemocrats called it \u2018unacceptable\u2019 and a distraction to pay the troops.\n\n\u201cWe even offered to give them a vote on a health care proposal of their own design if they vote to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cThe answer again was no.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I don\u2019t know what Democrats are looking for.\n\n\u201cBut if they\u2019re looking for Republicans to give in to their hostage-taking, they should think again.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve been very clear since the beginning.\n\n\u201cOn the first day of this shutdown, I said Republicans would be perfectly willing to discuss the issues Democrats are raising \u2013 but only after we reopen the government.\n\n\u201cI said, and I quote \u2013 quoting myself here \u2013 \u2018we\u2019re not going to engage in bipartisan discussions while Democrats are holding the federal government hostage to their partisan demands.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd interestingly enough, Mr. President, that\u2019s the exact same position the Democrat leader espoused during the 2013 shutdown.\n\n\u201cHe said then, and I quote, \u2018As we said a thousand times, we are happy to discuss how to fund the government [but] not with a gun to our head. Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion \u2026 Then we will discuss things, but \u2013 as has been said over and over \u2013 not with a gun to our heads.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat, from the Democrat leader back in 2013.\n\n\u201cHe espoused the same position, interestingly enough, again in 2019, noting, and I quote again: \u2018We cannot \u2013 cannot \u2013 ever hold American workers hostage again.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd yet here he is, in 2025, holding American workers and government funding hostage.\n\n\u201cI guess he\u2019s forgotten his own words.\n\n\u201cOr maybe it\u2019s just situational, like a lot of things.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve just adopted a political position, not a real one.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands.\n\n\u201cAs I said, we\u2019ve actually offered to guarantee them a vote on the Obamacare issue that they are raising.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats continue to dig in.\n\n\u201cThey say we have to agree to their demands before they\u2019ll agree to pay our troops.\n\n\u201cBefore federal workers can have certainty about putting food on the table and paying their bills.\n\n\u201cBefore needy families can be sure that nutrition assistance will be there for them.\n\n\u201cThey say all of this has to wait until after we fix a problem Democrats created.\n\n\u201cBecause let\u2019s be clear, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThe Obamacare cliff that Democrats are so worked up about is the result of their own choices.\n\n\u201cDemocrats wrote Obamacare.\n\n\u201cThey passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote.\n\n\u201cThey created the Obamacare COVID credits without a single Republican vote.\n\n\u201cAnd then they extended the COVID credits, and they chose the expiration date \u2013 without a single Republican vote.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThey chose the expiration date.\n\n\u201cAnd then they chose not to address that expiration date when they had the majority here in the Senate for the last four years!\n\n\u201cBut now they want you to believe that this is somehow a \u2018Republican health care crisis.\u2019\n\n\u201cGive me a break.\n\n\u201cGive me a break.\n\n\u201cMr. President, if Democrats truly want a discussion on how to fix the health care mess they created, then they should be voting to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cAnd we have a bill right there at the desk that will do just that.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s clean.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s nonpartisan.\n\n\u201cIt has no Republican policies.\n\n\u201cIt has no partisan policy riders.\n\n\u201cIt just extends current funding levels for a few short weeks, until we get an opportunity to finish the rest of the appropriations process.\n\n\u201cAnd right now, Mr. President, we are just five Democrat votes away from passing that here in the Senate and sending it to the White House for President Trump to sign.\n\n\u201cAnd if just a handful \u2013 a handful \u2013 of Democrats would step forward, we could reopen the government literally in a matter of hours. Today.\n\n\u201cAs I said, Mr. President, from the very beginning of this shutdown I have made it clear that if Democrats reopen the government, we can immediately sit down and talk about the Obamacare cliff they\u2019ve created.\n\n\u201cInstead, Democrats have wasted now one, two, three weeks when we could have been having those discussions.\n\n\u201cAnd while the American people have suffered, Democrats have been courting praise from the far left.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve spent their time looking to be praised for fighting against President Trump when they could have been working with him and with Republicans on solving a problem that they claim to be concerned about.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019ll say it again: Republicans are ready to go to work.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been ready.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re just waiting for Democrats to take \u2018yes\u2019 for an answer.\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=5E5470DF-355B-492E-ADBA-AB20E37E9492"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8134990930557251, "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"}