South Dakota US Senator John Thune appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, and spoke about the shutdown that government faces because Democrats are unwilling to come together with Republicans on funding the budget, and are instead engaging in brinkmanship by holding the American government hostage.
KRISTEN WELKER: All right. Let’s talk about the big battle over government funding. We’re just two days away, Leader, as you know, from a potential government shutdown. The president did cancel a planned meeting with Democratic leaders. The House doesn’t plan to be in session until after the shutdown deadline. Is the government going to shut down this week, Leader Thune?
SEN. JOHN THUNE: Totally up to the Democrats. The ball is in their court. There is a bill sitting at the desk in the Senate right now, we could pick it up today and pass it, that has been passed by the House that will be signed into law by the president to keep the government open. So this decision, in my judgment, at this point in time is up to a handful of Democrats. We need eight Democrats to pass it through the Senate, something that 13 times when the Democrats had the majority over the last four years and President Biden was in the White House Republicans helped Democrats do. Thirteen different times, we did continuing resolutions in the Democrat majority. And in every case, they passed. And what the Democrats have done here is take the federal government as a hostage, and for that matter, by extension, the American people, to try and get a whole laundry list of things that they want, the special interest groups on the far left are pushing them to accomplish. And using a seven-week funding resolution, which is designed to give us time to do the normal appropriations process. They are using this hostage trying to get all these other things done. It’s a very straightforward argument in my mind. It’s simple.
Watch the entire segment here at NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.
Senator Thune please stop with all the BS. You need to stand up for everything this country represents and it’s not Donald Trump and his minions. Donald Trump is on a revenge path and is destroying everything in his deminia mind that stands in the way.
Thune should be embarrassed each payday. He sits on the sideline instead of doing his job. He and the rest Rounds, Johnson should equally ashamed. .
Republicans created a budget Democrats can’t support, and Trump ordered that there be NO NEGOTIATION OR COMPROMISE. So it is caused by TRUMP. THUNE. Name your favorite Republican. There is NO WAY to blame Democrats for “breaking” a system that clearly remains broken by Donald Trump.
John you are gaslighting us with old stale air and it’s having no effect. We see you crooks clearly.
Apparently, Thune did pretty well when he was reciting his canned blame-the-Democrats messages. But at one particularly testy moment, Brian Hagg expressed his concerns about what seemed to him to be an assault on the First Amendment. Thune’s response: “We think our strong economy will make things better.” If anybody was at that meeting, could you please verify that this is what he said. If so, that has to be one of the most tone-deaf responses anyone has uttered.
There were no testy moments at the luncheon. Don’t recall those particular words, but at best it’s a poorly abridged quote taken out of context.
Did anybody touch on First Amendment?
Thanks for the clarification. Did anybody mention First Amendment issues?
No Senator, it’s up to you to negotiate. You don’t get to railroad and this will be seen as a Republican shutdown.
Naaa
blah blah blah
So the annual-government-shutdown is upon us again. It’s a crisis, the sky is falling, and PEOPLE WILL DIE.
Government shutdown is one thing, the other is the support for soybean farmers. Let’s break the story with Thune down as follows: 1) Donald Trump thinks China is a big mean country and that he can impose some fealty by imposing tariffs on Chinese goods; 2) China retaliates by refusing to buy any American produced soybeans; 3) China looks around for soybeans to buy and finds a willing supplier in Brazil, and Argentina; 4) Argentina’s prime minister, a buddy of Trump, approaches the United States Sec. of Treasury, Scott Bessent, and asks for $20 billion to bolster Argentina’s currency; 5) Trump calls Bessent and tells him to do the deal and they wire $20 billion to Argentina; 6) Argentina, flush with U.S. currency cuts their export tariff on soybeans and China snaps up a whole bunch of cheap beans from Argentina’s farmers without having to pay the earlier tax to Argentina; 7) American farmers begin harvesting soybeans and have no where to sell their crop; 8) Donald Trump tells the press that he wants to use money collected from U.S. tariffs to pay soybean farmers for their loss; and 9) Bobbly-headed Thune says, “…the revenue from U.S. tariffs will be used to support American farmers.
So, just to be clear. Americans pay an income tax. Now Americans pay a national sales tax for their purchases, ie. Trump’s tariffs, ranging from 10% to 200%. Trump craters American markets, and our illegally collected sales tax will be used to subsidize soybean farmers that Trump hurt. That is some astounding logic from our very stable genius leaders in D.C.
Now, if only the Farm Service Agency (already working on a skeleton crew basis after the DOGE cuts) could somehow be exempted from the upcoming gov’t shutdown so those subsidies could actually be sent out……
Tariffs, a tax on Americans importing goods, are now being redistributed to farmers. So….. socialism is good now?