{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=871A699F-9CE2-4517-93F6-A6157246C28D", "Thune: Schumer Shutdown Day 27", "2025-10-27", "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, \u2018There is a time and a place to debate health care, just like there is a time and place to debate energy policy and immigration and education \u2013 but not, not, when the funding of the federal government, and all the lives that are impacted by it, hang in the balance.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018There is a time and a place to debate health care \u2026 but not when the funding of the federal government, and all the lives that are impacted by it, hang in the balance.\u2019\n\n\u201cThose are not my words, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThose are the words of the junior Democrat senator from Connecticut, back in 2013.\n\n\u201c\u2018There is a time and a place to debate health care \u2026 but not when the funding of the federal government, and all the lives that are impacted by it, hang in the balance.\u2019\n\n\u201cThese words were once emblematic of the Democrat position here in the Senate.\n\n\u201cDemocrats once passionately opposed shutdowns \u2013 or so they said \u2013 in large part because of the impact they would have on American citizens and American workers.\n\n\u201cNow? Well, now government workers \u2013 and every other American affected by this shutdown \u2013 have become nothing more than pawns in the Democrats\u2019 political games.\n\n\u201cOn Friday federal workers missed their entire paychecks.\n\n\u201cThe next paycheck for our troops \u2013 for our troops \u2013 Mr. President, is in jeopardy.\n\n\u201cAnd more than 40 million Americans could lose access to food stamps if the shutdown continues.\n\n\u201cForty million.\n\n\u201cAnd yet none of it seems to matter to Senate Democrats.\n\n\u201cThe party that once decried the impact of shutdowns on Americans in need is now apparently content to see 40 million Americans go without food.\n\n\u201cThe senior Democrat senator from Vermont was on TV the other day, and one of the hosts suggested that members of Congress should refuse to take their paychecks during a shutdown.\n\n\u201cAnd what did the senior Democrat senator from Vermont say?\n\n\u201cHe said that some members of Congress couldn\u2019t afford to go without pay.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cThat some members of Congress couldn\u2019t afford to go without pay.\n\n\u201cDoes he think that other Americans can?\n\n\u201cThe junior Democrat senator from Arizona told NBC News near the beginning of the shutdown that he couldn\u2019t afford to miss his paycheck.\n\n\u201cThis was his quote: \u2018I\u2019m not wealthy, and I have three kids. I would basically be missing, you know, mortgage payments, rent payments, child support. So it\u2019s not feasible, not gonna happen.\u2019\n\n\u201cWhat ON EARTH does he think is happening to federal workers \u2013 and other Americans out of work because of the Democrats\u2019 shutdown?\n\n\u201cDoes he think they don\u2019t have mortgage payments? Rent payments? School expenses? Electric bills?\n\n\u201cIf some members of Congress can\u2019t afford to miss a paycheck, how much more is that true for the many workers making a lot less than members of Congress pull down?\n\n\u201cThe junior Democrat senator from Minnesota stated that she would not be forgoing her pay because she is continuing to work.\n\n\u201cBecause she is continuing to work.\n\n\u201cDo Democrats even hear themselves?\n\n\u201cShe does realize, right, that a lot of other people are continuing to work?\n\n\u201cAnd have been working without pay now for four weeks now, thanks to her actions and those of her Democrat colleagues?\n\n\u201cHow many of those workers are going to miss their rent payments or mortgage payments before Democrats are satisfied?\n\n\u201c\u2018Shutdowns aren\u2019t victimless crimes,\u2019 the senior Democrat from Virginia said \u2013 less than a year ago, I might add.\n\n\u201cWell, Mr. President, Democrats\u2019 victims are piling up.\n\n\u201cAnd Democrats don\u2019t look likely to spare anyone any time soon.\n\n\u201cIn fact, they\u2019re freely admitting it.\n\n\u201cThe second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives said recently, and I quote \u2013 I\u2019ve got it right here, Mr. President \u2013 \u2018Of course there will be families that are going to suffer. \u2026 But it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u2019\n\n\u201cI guess the Americans currently lining up at food banks can comfort themselves with the knowledge that they\u2019re being sacrificed to advance Democrats\u2019 political goals.\n\n\u201cMr. President, if you asked Democrats the reason for the 180-degree flip in their views on shutdowns \u2013 if you challenged them to explain their hypocrisy \u2013 I suspect you wouldn\u2019t get much of an answer.\n\n\u201cI suspect that at best Democrats would bleat something about how this shutdown is a special case.\n\n\u201cRight?\n\n\u201cA special case.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s always a special case with Democrats.\n\n\u201cA historic blockade of presidential nominees?\n\n\u201cWell, that was a special case.\n\n\u201cIgnore anything that you\u2019ve ever said about shutdowns, right here on the floor of the Senate.\n\n\u201cWell, that was a special case.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s actually special about this case.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s special about this case is that Democrats\u2019 far-left base demanded a showdown with President Trump.\n\n\u201cAnd Democrats have abandoned every principle that they possessed related to shutdowns to give it to them.\n\n\u201cAnd while some Democrats may be privately uncomfortable about all the damage a four-week shutdown is doing, so far they\u2019re too scared of their base to do anything about it.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats claim that this shutdown is about addressing the expiring Obamacare COVID subsidies.\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s not really what this is about.\n\n\u201cIf this were really what this is about, then Democrats would be voting to reopen the government so that we could actually engage in a serious discussion about rising health care costs \u2013 and how Obamacare has failed to address them.\n\n\u201cBut they\u2019re not.\n\n\u201cBecause at the end of the day, Democrats don\u2019t want a solution: they want a political issue.\n\n\u201cAnd if countless hardworking Americans are sacrificed in the process?\n\n\u201c\u2018Of course there will be families that are going to suffer. \u2026 But it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u2019\n\n\u201cApparently that\u2019s just fine with the Democrats here in the Senate.\n\n\u201cMr. President, we\u2019ll be voting once again this week to reopen the government \u2013 to reopen the government, restore hardworking Americans\u2019 paychecks, protect nutrition programs, support critical services like air traffic control \u2026 and that list goes on and on and on.\n\n\u201cAnd Democrats will have a 13th chance to vote on a clean, nonpartisan funding bill that will reopen the government.\n\n\u201cAll we need are five Democrats to join the three who are with us already, and we could have the government open again in a matter of hours.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s that simple, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThe solution is sitting right at that desk.\n\n\u201cThe bill that passed the House a month ago is sitting at this desk and has been now for a month.\n\n\u201cAnd we have repeatedly called it up asked us to vote on it.\n\n\u201cEvery time \u2013 every time \u2013 we get 55 senators voting for it.\n\n\u201cEveryone knows the rules in Senate require 60.\n\n\u201cBut that bill, with five courageous Democrats stepping forward to help us pass it, could be on the president\u2019s desk, signed into law, and this government reopens.\n\n\u201cIt could happen today. It could happen this afternoon.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s just hope that somewhere, those courageous Democrats exist.\n\n\u201c\u2018Shutdowns \u2014 even partial ones \u2014 are as devastating as they are stupid,\u2019 that was what the senior Democrat from Virginia said just last year.\n\n\u201cSo how do you justify what you\u2019re doing now?\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s up to them, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cWe can do it, and we can do it today.\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=871A699F-9CE2-4517-93F6-A6157246C28D"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6320059765130281, "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"}