10.21.25

Thune to Senate Democrats: Time to Stop the Political Theater and Reopen the Government

“[T]he longer the federal government stays closed, the more the impacts are being felt: travel delays, benefit delays … farmers are being impacted, millions of people going without paychecks.”

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference at the White House with Senate Republican leadership:

Thune’s remarks below (as delivered):

“We just had a great opportunity to meet with the president and talk about something that unifies all Republicans.

“Senate Republicans, House Republicans, and the president of the United States are all in favor of reopening the federal government – in fact, so much so that we’ve now all voted 11 times to reopen the federal government.

“But the longer the federal government stays closed, the more the impacts are being felt: travel delays, benefit delays, you know, farmers are being impacted, millions of people going without paychecks.

“That’s what this government shutdown, Democrat government shutdown, is bringing to the American people.

“So we’re hopeful that this will be the week when we break out of this and the Democrats come to their senses and decide to open up the government.

“We’re going to give them several opportunities, as you know, to do that.

“We’ll have another vote on the continuing resolution tomorrow – which is sitting at the desk of the Senate, can be sent down here to the White House, signed into law, the government would open up immediately.

“We’re also going to vote on a Ron Johnson resolution that essentially would pay anybody who’s currently working.

“So we’ll see how the Democrats react to that.

“But the truth of the matter is, you have a bunch of people here, a united team that believes profoundly that we need to get our government open.

“And if the Democrats want to talk about subjects unrelated to … getting the government open again, we’re happy to have those conversations, but we’ve repeatedly now gone through this, and at some point the Democrats are going to have to [take] yes for an answer.

“We want a normal appropriations process.

“We want to give them an opportunity to sit down and litigate some of the issues they want to talk about, but that can’t happen until the government gets opened up again.”