{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=CF5A602A-570D-4F66-989D-481B15B1E8B3", "Thune: Senate Democrats Must Prioritize National Security Over Political Show Votes", "2024-09-17", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about the importance of passing the National Defense Authorization Act. Thune noted that Majority Leader Schumer has spent the last several months holding show votes on bills that are designed to score political points, not become law, and has prioritized them over our nation\u2019s defense and security.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, before I begin, I just want to say how grateful I am that President Trump is safe after what appears to be a second attempt on his life in the space of two months.\n\n\u201cThe trend this election cycle has taken toward violence is disturbing to say the least.\n\n\u201cAnd I hope this weekend\u2019s events will prompt reflection on our political discourse and the importance of not letting our disagreements lead to the dehumanization of our opponents.\n\n\u201cI am grateful for all the law enforcement personnel who responded and helped prevent another tragedy.\n\n\u201cAnd I look forward to seeing a thorough investigation.\n\n\u201cMr. President, perhaps the most important thing we do here in Congress is to provide for our nation\u2019s defense.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve said it before and I\u2019ll say it again, if we don\u2019t get national security right, the rest is just conversation.\n\n\u201cEverything else we do in government \u2013 and our very existence as a nation \u2013 depends on getting our security right.\n\n\u201cAnd national security, Mr. President, is not a one-and-done kind of situation.\n\n\u201cWe can\u2019t rely on a one-time military buildup or the reputation we\u2019ve earned as a superpower to keep our nation safe.\n\n\u201cTactics change. Technology changes. Weapons change.\n\n\u201cAnd reputations, Mr. President, even strong ones, eventually change if they\u2019re not backed up with substance.\n\n\u201cMaintaining a robust national defense has to be a permanent focus, year-in and year-out.\n\n\u201cThere is no time in which we can afford to put national security on the back burner or underfund our nation\u2019s military.\n\n\u201cWhich brings me to where we are today.\n\n\u201cMr. President, in July of this year, the Commission on the National Defense Strategy released its report.\n\n\u201cIt had this to say, and I quote: \u2018The Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.\u2019\n\n\u201cLet me just repeat that, Mr. President.\n\n\u201c\u2018The Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnother quote from the commission\u2019s report: \u2018The Commission finds that, in many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment. Without significant change by the United States, the balance of power will continue to shift in China\u2019s favor.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, from the Strategic Posture Commission report: \u2018Today the United States is on the cusp of having not one, but two nuclear peer adversaries, each with ambitions to change the international status quo, by force, if necessary: a situation which the United States did not anticipate and for which it is not prepared.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018\u2026 a situation which the United States did not anticipate and for which it is not prepared.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn short, Mr. President, we have work to do.\n\n\u201cWe are not where we should be when it comes to our national defense.\n\n\u201cAnd while our preparedness lags, the world isn\u2019t getting any safer.\n\n\u201cIf anything, it\u2019s getting more dangerous.\n\n\u201cOver the course of the Biden-Harris administration we\u2019ve seen Russia invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine, China growing increasingly aggressive in the Pacific, a brutal terrorist attack on Israel that left more than a thousand dead, terrorists threatening shipping in the Middle East \u2026 the list goes on.\n\n\u201cThis summer alone, Russian and Chinese bombers for the first time sortied together 200 miles off the coast of Alaska, an alarming display of the growing ties between the two nations.\n\n\u201cTaiwan reported 305 airspace violations by Chinese aircraft in the month of June, the second-highest monthly total on record.\n\n\u201cThe Chinese continue to swarm and even collide with ships from the Philippines.\n\n\u201cAnd just weeks ago, Japan for the first time reported an incursion of a Chinese aircraft into its airspace.\n\n\u201cIn the Middle East, U.S. military members have continued to combat terrorists on land and Houthi attacks on U.S. ships and international shipping in the Red Sea.\n\n\u201cHamas still holds upwards of 100 hostages in Gaza, including seven Americans.\n\n\u201cIran has sent close-range ballistic missiles to Russia, presumably for use against the Ukrainian people.\n\n\u201cA Pakistani national with ties to Iran was charged with plotting the assassination of multiple U.S. politicians.\n\n\u201cAnd I could go on.\n\n\u201cGiven all of this, Mr. President, you would think Democrat leadership here in the Senate would have made our yearly defense bills \u2013 the National Defense Authorization Act and our defense appropriations bills \u2013 a priority.\n\n\u201cBut you\u2019d be wrong.\n\n\u201cWe are two weeks away from the end of the fiscal year, and we haven\u2019t touched the National Defense Authorization Act since it was passed by the committee \u2013 much less touched the defense appropriations bills.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s not, Mr. President, because we\u2019ve been passing a bunch of other substantive pieces of legislation.\n\n\u201cAside from the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, we\u2019ve basically spent the entire summer confirming Biden nominees and taking show votes selected by the Democrat leader.\n\n\u201cAnd as a result, the fiscal year will close and the new one begin without a defense authorizing bill and without defense appropriations bills.\n\n\u201cInstead, our military will have to continue operating under inadequate 2024 funding levels.\n\n\u201cExisting modernization projects will be delayed, and urgent new programs will be put off.\n\n\u201cAnd I haven\u2019t even talked about the message these delays send to our enemies.\n\n\u201cAnyone who thinks that our enemies aren\u2019t emboldened by this careless attitude toward our national security needs to think again.\n\n\u201cAnd for that matter, Mr. President, what message do these delays send to our allies?\n\n\u201cI recently returned from a trip to Japan and South Korea led by my colleague Senator Hagerty to build relationships and enhance trilateral cooperation.\n\n\u201cWe stressed the imperative of investing in our mutual defense cooperation \u2013 a message that will be undercut by our putting defense legislation on the back burner.\n\n\u201cLikewise, our message to allies and partners around the world that they should take more seriously their own defense investments will be juxtaposed against our own inaction.\n\n\u201cMr. President, needless to say, it didn\u2019t have to be this way.\n\n\u201cIf the Democrat leader had been more interested in meeting Congress\u2019 basic responsibilities than in conducting show votes he hopes may win Democrats a few votes in November, we could have already passed not only the National Defense Authorization Act but defense appropriations.\n\n\u201cAs it is, thanks to the decisions of the Democrat leader, our military will have to wait at least until after the election.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, our adversaries\u2019 efforts continue.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this isn\u2019t the first time in the Biden-Harris administration that Democrats have chosen to put our national defense on the back burner.\n\n\u201cAnd while we don\u2019t know what the Senate or the presidency will look like next year, I hope we will have leaders who take our national security a little more seriously.\n\n\u201cI suspect that if we don\u2019t, we will have cause to regret it.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:46:43Z"]], "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=CF5A602A-570D-4F66-989D-481B15B1E8B3"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7096871268004179, "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"}