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 Releases09.04.25Thune Joins The Hugh Hewitt Show“This is a new level of obstruction, and it’s got to be dealt with in a way that enables the president and us to do the jobs the American people elected us to do.” Click here to watch the video.WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined The Hugh Hewitt Show.On a nominations rules change:“[W]e’ve kind of shopped these ideas around about how to do this in a way that actually helps us clear the backlog [of nominations] and creates a way for us to confirm the rest of … President Trump’s administration, we’ve got to figure out how to make sure we’ve got the votes to move it.“And so we’ve been having those conversations here, and I hope that we get to a spot where we’re ready to move. And if things go according to plan, I think we get on that next week.”On preserving the Senate’s integrity:“The Democrats have created this problem, Chuck Schumer. But prior to Chuck Schumer, this was always done in a way where, if you had some of the … lower-level nominees in the administration, those were all … voted en bloc … they were packaged, they were grouped, they were stacked. And that just doesn’t happen [anymore].“This is the first president in history … who at this point in his presidency, hasn’t had at least one nominee clear by unanimous consent or voice vote.“It is unprecedented what they’re doing. It’s got to be stopped. The president deserves his team, and that’s what the American people voted for. And we intend to deliver it.”[…]“There are prerogatives that the Senate has … constitutionally, advice and consent, and we want to preserve and retain that. We believe this does that. But we … can’t do what we’re doing today. The Democrats have broken the system, and this is, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, a problem that they’re making. Unfortunately, Republicans are going to have to clean up their mess.”On Democrats’ historic obstruction:“The Democrats are engaging in record obstruction. I mean, we’ve been in more hours, more days, cast more votes, than any Congress, in certainly modern history, Hugh, and I think it’s indicative of just the political environment. “Chuck Schumer and the far left – this is Elizabeth Warren, it’s Bernie Sanders, it’s Chris Murphy, it’s Cory Booker – they have decided to just virtually shut down anything that this president wants to accomplish and try and use the floor, the Senate floor, to delay and block and obstruct.“And it is, as I said, Trump Derangement Syndrome on steroids here in the United States Senate … this just can’t continue. We can’t function as a government in this country unless the president is able to get his people in place … They’re doing it on everything, but these nominees … you can’t argue with the data.“It’s just absolutely crystal clear what they’re up to, and that is to try and completely put roadblocks up and stop the Trump agenda. The American people voted for the president. They voted for him to have his team in place. And it also prevents us from doing other work … all the other things that we need to do around here, we’re spending two-thirds of our time on personnel … The United States Senate spending two-thirds of its time on human resources.”[…]“We are now eight months into this president’s term, and he has … 11 or 12 percent of his folks in place, because we’ve had to grind it out. The Democrats have forced us to go through all the hoops. We haven’t had a single one confirmed by unanimous consent, a practice that has been employed by Senates … with Republican and Democrat presidents, going back decades. This is a new level of obstruction, and it’s got to be dealt with in a way that enables the president and us to do the jobs the American people elected us to do.”On government funding:“We’ve got to fund the government. We realize that. We also want to fund it in a way that makes the government more efficient, smaller, and a better return for the taxpayer. So, those are all objectives that we have … clearly not shared by the Democrats.“We’re going to have some … rather testy conversations here in the weeks ahead. But if we end up in that posture, I just want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, and the American people understand that it’s Republicans who are trying to keep the government open and running in a responsible, fiscally responsible and efficient way, and the Democrats who are trying to shut it down. I think that’ll be clear.”PrintEmailTweetPreviousTHE NEWSROOMSENATE RESOURCESABOUT LEADER THUNEFacebookXInstagram
