{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=92C406B2-9938-4BBA-992D-4EA7E53A71BA", "Thune: Republicans Fight to Secure America", "2026-05-19", "2026", "2026-05", "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 spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cThe former vice president said here recently that this is a moment when there are no bad ideas.\n\n\u201cWith all due respect to the former vice president, it seems to me, at least, to the Democrats, there\u2019s no shortage of bad ideas.\n\n\u201cAnd chief among those is this idea that they\u2019re going to defund the police.\n\n\u201cThat is the mantra of the Democrat Party, it\u2019s the position of the Democrats here in Washington in the House and the Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd as a consequence of that, Republicans are going to be forced to take care of the American people.\n\n\u201cBecause I think the question \u2026 that\u2019s before us is, do we want to live in safety and security?\n\n\u201cAnd obviously the answer to that, for most Americans, I think, is going to be yes.\n\n\u201cAnd if you look at the record of success that this administration and working with this Congress has had, in the last 12 months, there was not a single illegal immigrant released into this country.\n\n\u201cLast 12 months, not a single one.\n\n\u201cAnd you go back to just two years ago, under the Biden administration, there were literally thousands being released into the country every single day.\n\n\u201cSo, this is about whether or not you want to live in a country that is safe and secure, where you support law enforcement and the important job they do \u2013 Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement \u2013 or whether you don\u2019t.\n\n\u201cAnd Republicans do.\n\n\u201cRepublicans are going to have law enforcement\u2019s back.\n\n\u201cAnd so this week we\u2019re going to vote on the Secure America Act, which is a piece of legislation that will fund ICE and CBP, not only for this year but through the entirety of the Trump administration, because the Democrats have adopted a defund-the-police and open-borders policy, which is incredibly detrimental to this country, and we\u2019re going to ensure that that doesn\u2019t happen.\n\n\u201cSo that\u2019s what\u2019s going to be on the floor here, hopefully later this week.\n\n\u201cI expect again that the Democrats are, we\u2019ll see what they want to do in terms of amendments, and but I doubt you\u2019ll see many amendments that have to do with Border Patrol or \u2026 Immigration and Customs Enforcement.\n\n\u201cI think most of what you\u2019re going to see is a bunch of unrelated amendments, but we\u2019re going to stay focused on the job, keep our \u2026 foot on the gas \u2026 and ensure that the American people are able to live in safety and security in their communities in this country.\u201d", 1, "2026-05-20T06:27:31Z", "2026-05-20T06:28:54Z"]], "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=92C406B2-9938-4BBA-992D-4EA7E53A71BA"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5613669529557228, "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"}