Thune Joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox News

Majority Leader | Press Release | Press Releases | THE NE...Skip to primary navigation Skip to content×Close THE NEWSROOMRemarks Press Releases The Leader Board Op-Eds Videos SENATE RESOURCESRepublican Senators Committees Congressional Record Congress.gov Senate Floor Webcast ABOUT LEADER THUNE×Close THE NEWSROOMRemarks Press Releases The Leader Board Op-Eds Videos SENATE RESOURCESRepublican Senators Committees Congressional Record Congress.gov Senate Floor Webcast ABOUT LEADER THUNExxsearchxMENUFacebookXInstagramFacebookXInstagramVisit Leader Thune's South Dakota Site Here THE NEWSROOMRemarks Press Releases The Leader Board Op-Eds Videos SENATE RESOURCESRepublican Senators Committees Congressional Record Congress.gov Senate Floor Webcast ABOUT LEADER THUNExxsearchxMENUHomeTHE NEWSROOMPress Releases10.05.25Thune Joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox News“[Chuck Schumer’s] rank-and-file members shouldn’t follow his lead on this. This is where you need to separate from your leader and actually do the right thing for your constituents and for your country.” Click here to watch.WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.On Congress’ responsibility to fund the government:“There’s not a lot to negotiate, Maria. The Democrats just need to open up the government. Right now, we’re at a stalemate. They’ve now voted four times. We’ve given them the opportunity – a clean, nonpartisan, short-term funding resolution that continues government funding for the next seven weeks, and on four occasions now they’ve voted against it.“So they’ll get another chance on Monday to vote again, and I’m hoping that some of them have a change of heart … What’s happening here is the Democrats are trying to hijack a short-term, nonpartisan continuing resolution to fund the government merely for seven weeks, to give us an opportunity to get the appropriations process done – to try and get $1.5 trillion of new spending, make health care in this country, free health care available to noncitizens in this country, and guts a $50 billion rural hospital health fund that’s designed to support rural hospitals.“That’s what they’ve got on the table. That’s [Democrats’] proposal. It’s a nonstarter. It’s not serious, it’s not reasonable, it’s not realistic. Everybody knows that. The Democrats need to come to that realization and understand their option in front of them here is to open up the government, and then we can talk about all these other things they want to have a conversation about.” […]“[Chuck Schumer’s] rank-and-file members shouldn’t follow his lead on this. This is where you need to separate from your leader and actually do the right thing for your constituents and for your country.”[…]“This is nonpartisan, we didn’t put anything on it – no gimmicks, no policy riders. Just a straightforward resolution to keep the government open so we can continue the appropriations work that … both sides, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, want to do.”On the consequences of Democrats’ shutdown:“You’re talking about border patrol agents not getting paid, TSA agents not getting paid … You’ve got programs like … food assistance for women and children that’s being affected by this. At some point, this is going to start having real consequences …“The administration is having to make decisions right now about how to move money around, which agencies and departments to prioritize in all this. And those are also decisions they’re going to be costly to the American people and to a lot of the constituents of Democrats out there who continually vote to keep the government shut down.”[…]“The real sacrifice here, too, is all the other things we need to be doing … We’ve got a defense authorization bill that’s supposed to be on the floor. Appropriations bills. Permitting reform. All kinds of other things that are … swept aside and hanging in the balance now over this shutdown. So it’s really a function, not only of opening up the government again, but it’s also all the other things that Congress needs to be working on that we’re not getting done right now.” On Democrats’ shutdown hypocrisy:“This is a Schumer shutdown. Chuck Schumer instigated this at the behest of a bunch of far-left, liberal interest groups. But there are Democrats who are reaching out to Republicans, having conversations about how we might be able to get the government opened up again.“So hopefully the reasonable Democrats will prevail there and not … follow the lead of their leader … and walk down this path of a government shutdown, which is detrimental to the American people. And they know that, and this is a very costly endeavor for the Democrats to take, because it really does hurt people across this country, and it’s a simple, straightforward proposition to get the government opened up again.” […]“Right now [Democrat] leadership is stuck, because these left-wing special interest groups are so adamant in their desire to fight President Trump, it’s sort of this blind Trump Derangement Syndrome, if you will. They don’t want to give the president a victory on anything. This is not giving him a victory … this is simply continuing to fund the government for the next seven weeks so we can continue the appropriations process. It really is, it’s ironic, in a way, that this is where the Democrats have decided to pick their fight … Their liberal left is insisting on it, and so their leadership is being, you know, it’s the tail wagging the dog right now.“All these things that [Democrats] want to do and that we’re talking about, we’re happy to have a conversation about, but that can’t happen with the government shut down.”On Democrats’ historic obstruction:“I can’t speak for their side. I don’t understand their side. I certainly don’t understand this strategy. I’ve never seen something that seems like such a losing proposition, a losing hand, where you take hostage something you actually like, which is the federal government.”[…]“This is the new business model for the Democrats in the Senate. They have decided to take everything hostage because of their hatred for the president … I don’t understand it. It is irrational to me. But there are people on their side for whom this Trump Derangement Syndrome is borderline pathological. There is just no other explanation for it. They just want to fight everything that the president is trying to get done.”On a peace deal in the middle east:“We’re all very, very hopeful. I mean, please … let’s get these hostages released … I give the president and his team great credit for sitting down and being able to work out this – work with the Israelis, work with other … neighbors in the region who care deeply about stability and peace in that area of the world …“I’m skeptical, obviously, as always, of Hamas and any other terrorist organization, because … they, as a fundamental matter of their charter, want to eliminate and wipe out Israel on the map. And I think in the end, they need to disarm, and that’s something I think that’s being asked of them, which we’ll see if they’re … willing to follow through on.“But let’s give the president credit. Hopefully this will be a deal that will result in a peaceful outcome in that region, and the elimination and obliteration of Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups that have been wreaking havoc there, literally now for decades.”PrintEmailTweetPreviousTHE NEWSROOMSENATE RESOURCESABOUT LEADER THUNEFacebookXInstagram