{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=A07D8BAC-B566-461E-8C72-5BF633365F1D", "Thune: Schumer Shutdown Day 14", "2025-10-14", "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, \u2018every day gets better for us.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo said the Democrat leader in an interview published on Thursday \u2013 hours before Democrats once again voted to keep the government closed and to deny service members a paycheck.\n\n\u201cFederal workers \u2013 including law enforcement officers \u2013 missed part of their pay last Friday.\n\n\u201cBut hey, at least life is getting better for Senate Democrats.\n\n\u201cMr. President, a CNN article from Thursday said that Democrats are preparing to keep on with this shutdown for, and I quote, \u2018several more weeks.\u2019\n\n\u201cI guess Democrats are not going to be satisfied until military families and government workers are lining up at food banks or visiting payday lenders or simply charging necessary items like milk and bread on their credit cards, to be repaid later \u2013 if they can \u2013 along with the big interest charges that come with that.\n\n\u201cBut hey, while military families and government workers may be deeply stressed, at least life is getting better every day for Senate Democrats.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I could at least understand a little bit more where Democrats are coming from if Republicans were asking them to swallow a lot of new Republican policies to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cBut Republicans aren\u2019t asking Democrats for anything.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re not asking them to support any new Republican policies.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re not asking them to swallow any partisan policy riders.\n\n\u201cWe have put forward \u2013 and the House has passed \u2013 a clean, nonpartisan CR.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the bill Democrats are rejecting.\n\n\u201cAnd by the way, you certainly don\u2019t have to take my word for it that we put forward a clean bill.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s what one mainstream news publication said last week, and I quote, \u2018It\u2019s important to note that Democrats instigated this shutdown. They rejected a \u201cclean\u201d funding proposal and demanded significant and expensive health care policy changes in exchange for their votes.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018It\u2019s important to note that Democrats instigated this shutdown. They rejected a \u201cclean\u201d funding proposal and demanded significant and expensive health care policy changes in exchange for their votes.\u2019\n\n\u201cYeah, that pretty much captures it right there in a nutshell, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cDemocrats like to whine that Republicans aren\u2019t negotiating.\n\n\u201cBut negotiation, Mr. President, is what you do when each side has a list of demands and you need to meet in the middle.\n\n\u201cRepublicans, as I and a lot of other people have pointed out, haven\u2019t put forward any demands.\n\n\u201cOnly Democrats have made demands \u2013 and, by the way, very expensive demands.\n\n\u201cAnd they\u2019ve taken government funding hostage in an attempt to force through their partisan measures.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I remember when Democrats used to care about the effects of a government shutdown.\n\n\u201cIn fact, I could fill a whole speech \u2013 many speeches, actually \u2013 with quotes from Democrats talking about how terrible shutdowns are.\n\n\u201cI used to think they were sincere in those opinions.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s become abundantly clear that their previous statements weren\u2019t based on principle, but on political advantage.\n\n\u201cDemocrats were against shutdowns when it suited their political purposes, and now that it suits their political purposes \u2013 they think \u2013 to keep the government closed, now they support shutdowns.\n\n\u201cI suspect their political calculations are flawed.\n\n\u201cAfter all, 65 percent of voters think Democrats should reopen the government instead of holding out for their partisan demands.\n\n\u201cBut I guess, Mr. President, Democrats are more worried about gaining the approval of their far-left base than about getting the approval of everyday Americans.\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s day 14 of Democrats\u2019 shutdown.\n\n\u201cOur economy is losing billions of dollars.\n\n\u201cFederal workers \u2013 including law enforcement officers \u2013 are going without pay.\n\n\u201cCritical government programs are in jeopardy.\n\n\u201cBut hey, at least life is getting better every day for Senate Democrats.\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=A07D8BAC-B566-461E-8C72-5BF633365F1D"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8924679607152939, "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"}