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 Releases10.10.25Thune Joins Martha MacCallum on Fox News“[Democrats] have to think long and hard about what they’re doing, and unfortunately, the consequences of this are becoming very real … for a lot of federal workers.” Click here to watch the video.WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Martha MacCallum on Fox News.On Congress’ responsibility to fund the government:“Democrats have to decide whether they want to deliver the five votes that we need to open up the government. We have … 55 out of 100 senators. The House has passed it, it’s sitting on the desk at the Senate … “[Democrats] have to think long and hard about what they’re doing, and unfortunately, the consequences of this are becoming very real … for a lot of federal workers. We want our troops to get paid, we want our TSA agents to get paid, our Border Patrol agents to get paid, air traffic controllers to get paid.”On Democrats’ shutdown hypocrisy:“We’ve made it very, very easy. It’s a nonpartisan, short-term, clean continuing resolution to keep the government open. Democrats now have voted against it seven times – something that they voted for 13 times under Joe Biden when he was president and Chuck Schumer was the majority leader in the Senate.“This is a routine thing. What they’ve decided to do is hijack it, and they’ve consistently now, seven straight times, voted it down.” […]“Democrats have concluded … that they think this is a political game. I mean, the statement that Chuck Schumer said … to the press about, ‘this gets better for us every day.’ I mean, that is a cynical statement, and honestly, they ought to be ashamed, because this is a real thing for a lot of families across this country that could be completely eliminated.“All they simply have to do is vote for the bill that’s right at the Senate desk. All we need is five of them right now to get it done.”[…]“The president, like us, just wants to see the government opened up again … The Democrats are asking for $1.5 trillion in new spending. They’re asking for free health care for noncitizens in their counter proposal. Those are not things that’re going to go anywhere. It’s not serious.“We have in front of them a serious proposal to open up the government. They just simply need to take it, and then let’s go to work on health care.”On the consequences of Democrats’ shutdown:“I think the president – and to give him credit for this – for 10 days now, they have held off on making hard decisions with regard to agencies and departments and moving money around and deciding what gets prioritized and what doesn’t, and which employees are essential and get paid and which don’t.“Those are all hard decisions, and the Democrats have put the administration in that position. But for 10 days, they have resisted making any decisions like that. [The administration is] now going to be forced to make those kinds of decisions, and that’s really unfortunate.”On the preserving the legislative filibuster:“Every single Democrat, with the exception at the time of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – voted to get rid of the filibuster, and every single one of them today, if they had that same opportunity, would vote to keep the legislative filibuster, because it’s situational for them …“This is the ultimate hypocrisy, and we’ve been consistent. The filibuster is something that protects the minority in the United States Senate. It enables us to work in a constructive, bipartisan way to get things done, and it’s just something that we’re not going to do …“We don’t have to do it. All we have to have are five courageous Democrats with backbone who are willing to cross the far-left activist groups who are calling the shots, and they’re dancing to their tune, and just come up here and vote to get the government open. It’s that simple … this isn’t a complicated thing.”PrintEmailTweetNextPreviousTHE NEWSROOMSENATE RESOURCESABOUT LEADER THUNEFacebookXInstagram
