{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=5F7718E7-8C19-4CA3-8E53-FB675749AF00", "Thune Joins The Brian Kilmeade Show", "2025-10-15", "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 listen to The Brian Kilmeade Show.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined The Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox Radio.\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 shutdown hypocrisy:\n\n\u201c[Democrats have] got to vote to open up the government \u2026 this hostage-taking has to stop \u2026 They\u2019re asking for \u2026 $1.5 trillion in new spending \u2026 [and] all kinds of \u2026 provisions in there that would allow illegals to have free health care. Those are all just non-starters, and that\u2019s where their leadership is \u2026\n\n\u201cI think a real solution and the way out of this is going to come from rank-and-file Democrats who are tired of sort of following their leadership over the cliff and are ready to make a deal to get the government back open again and get us actually doing the work we need to be doing on behalf of the American people.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cWhat the Democrats are doing here is entirely wrong \u2026 nobody benefits from a shutdown \u2026 Chuck Schumer described it a few years ago as \u2018political idiocy\u2019 to shut down the government, to take it hostage to try and achieve other political objectives, and that\u2019s essentially what they\u2019ve done here.\u201d\n\nOn how the shutdown is impacting national security:\n\n\u201cGetting the defense authorization bill \u2026 [is] something we have to do every year, and then the defense appropriation bill actually writes the check that enables all those priorities to be funded \u2026\n\n\u201cThis is going to be an opportunity for the Democrats to show whether or not they\u2019re serious about what they say about wanting to have a regular appropriations process where we fund the government through what we call regular order \u2013 which is \u2026 allowing the committees to work, putting bills on the floor, opening up the amendment process.\n\n\u201cThe Democrats are going to have a chance to vote to get on that bill. That vote will \u2026 happen tomorrow \u2013 but we\u2019ll see where they go.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cThe Democrats are reluctant to do much of anything until that group gets here [on Saturday] and has their day and they can all \u2026 celebrate that they\u2019re fighting Trump, but at some point we have to govern the country, and that starts with national security.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve always said that if you don\u2019t get national security right, the rest is conversation. You\u2019ve got to be able to defend the country. And so moving the defense authorization bill last week was really important.\n\n\u201cThe defense appropriations bill, which funds all those things, is what we\u2019re trying to tee up this week. So we\u2019ll see \u2026 where the Democrats are, but I think in the end \u2026 if they\u2019re sincere about wanting to actually fund the government the old-fashioned way, this is a chance to do it.\u201d\n\nOn the consequences of Democrats\u2019 shutdown:\n\n\u201cNobody wants to see anybody lose a job, which is why it\u2019s so important that we open up the government. But I also understand that the administration, in the case of a shutdown, has a job to do. They\u2019ve got to try and figure out how to move money around. They\u2019ve moved some money around to help pay the troops at least for another couple of weeks \u2026\n\n\u201cThey have to make decisions about which departments and agencies get prioritized, which employees are essential, which aren\u2019t \u2013 and that happens when you get into a shutdown posture. So the administration is acting in a way that former presidencies \u2013 and I\u2019ve been through a number of these shutdowns and administrations \u2013 have acted, and that is, they\u2019re going to take care as much as they can of their priorities and those might in some cases \u2026 be at odds with what the Democrats want to see happen \u2026\n\n\u201c[The administration is] being put into this position because of the shutdown, and that\u2019s why \u2026 it\u2019s so important that five Democrats cross the aisle, show a little backbone and some courage, and vote with us to get the government open.\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=5F7718E7-8C19-4CA3-8E53-FB675749AF00"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4216669369488955, "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"}