John Thune Issues Warning To Senate Dems They'll Cause Shutdown If They Don't Back CR

20 hours ago

Senate Republican leaders hold their weekly press briefing.

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Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, everyone, without action from Congress, the government will run out of funding

00:14come Friday. And I think we all know why we are here. And that is because despite last

00:22year, Senate Appropriations Committee, passing 11 of the 12 appropriation bills, six of them

00:31unanimously, all of those 11 with big bipartisan margins, not a single one of them was put

00:39on the floor last year by David Schumer. And those bills were all available at the end

00:43of July. Those bills had all been passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee at the

00:47end of July of last year. And so here we are on the brink of a government shutdown,

00:53which will be entirely of the Democrats making if it happens, because the House will be voting

01:00on a continuing resolution on the government throughout the throughout the end of the year.

01:05And we'll send that over here to the Senate, we'll have an opportunity to act on a similar

01:10continuing resolution passed the end of last year in the Senate with 85 votes. This one

01:16should be no difficult, honestly. But as you all know, it takes 60 votes in the Senate

01:20to pass an appropriations bill. So we're gonna need some Democrats to vote for it. The Democrats

01:26have used the filibuster three times this year already, despite arguing for its elimination

01:32as recently as a few months ago. But three times this year, they've already filibustered

01:36bills in front of the Senate. I think the American people are going to be interested

01:40to see whether the Democrats are going to filibuster in my filibustering, shut down

01:47the federal government. It is on now, if this happens, there is a funding vehicle available

01:52coming over from the House of Representatives for the government through the end of the fiscal

01:56year, September 30. And we are prepared to take it up here in the Senate and make sure that on

02:01Friday, the government stays open. But it will be up to the Democrats as to whether or not that

02:06happens. Between now and then, we're working on the Stomp Fentanyl Act, which is legislation

02:11that came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's something that deals with fentanyl prices

02:16that we have in this country. And Senator Bill Cassidy, the chairman of the Health, Education,

02:22Labor, and Pensions Committee, has had a lot to do with that issue and with that legislation.

02:26I'm gonna ask him to come up and speak to it, and then we'll try and answer any questions you

02:30all have. Senator Cassidy. Thank you. 74,000 fellow Americans died of fentanyl or fentanyl

02:37analog overdose last year. Everyone watching, everyone here knows of somebody who has died

02:44of a fentanyl overdose. If you watch the Super Bowl, it would have been more than the crowd

02:49within the Superdome who have died this past year, but also every year from a fentanyl overdose.

02:55What this bill does, it makes permanent that a fentanyl analog exposes you to the same

03:03criminal penalties as if you're selling fentanyl. What's a fentanyl analog? I'm a doctor,

03:09so I'm gonna speak a little bit like a doctor. If you have the chemical structure of fentanyl,

03:14which is illegal to have, and you change it just a little bit, and with that change, technically,

03:20it may no longer be considered fentanyl. But if you take it, you still die. It still has the same

03:27terrible effects upon our society as that which is technically fentanyl. What this bill does,

03:33the Halt Fentanyl Act, one of the things it does is it says either fentanyl or a fentanyl analog

03:40is illegal to possess. It also, so it strengthens the penalty. We've had this on the books

03:47temporarily. Now we make it permanent. One more tool for law enforcement to use to fight the

03:53scourge of fentanyl. It also allows for research for those fentanyl actually has a medical use.

03:59And so if there's some analog which is medically superior, it also allows that research,

04:04keeps that door open in case there's something positive for society for one of these analogs.

04:10So this makes it permanent. It gives law enforcement one more tool. President Trump

04:18has said he will sign it. I'm glad that he will. Let's give as many tools as we can

04:23to law enforcement to take that 74,000 down to zero.

04:28Well, what am I going to say now? That dog don't hunt.

04:49Yeah, votes will be there. We had a foreign committee. We had seven co-sponsors from the

04:55Democratic side. I've worked closely with Senator Heimer. This is bipartisan because frankly,

05:01fentanyl is a bipartisan problem. And so if someone like doesn't vote for this,

05:05you're thinking, wait a second, you're going to turn a blind eye for the fact that 74,000 people

05:09died last year and a similar number the year before and a similar number the year before.

05:14So I think the votes will be there and it's passed the house. And so once it passes here,

05:18the president can sign it with a law. Anyone else? Thank you.

05:37Well, I think that what I've said before, I think, as you know, is that the president,

05:42I believe, is trying to accomplish a specific objective here and that is to hold

05:46fentanyl into this country. And the tariffs are a tool in order to make that happen. And I am

05:51supportive of using tariffs in a way to accomplish a specific objective in this case, ending drug

05:58traffic. But as I've said before, I hope these are temporary. I think the one thing that markets

06:05don't like is uncertainty. And there's obviously uncertainty around that tariff policy.

06:16The blockers.

06:27You're talking about the CR and CR. Well, I think we've, as we've done our head count,

06:33I think we're very comfortable that we deliver a majority vote for this. The question is,

06:39can we get the 60 vote supermajority threshold that's necessary to pass it? In order to do that,

06:43we need Democrats. So we will have our conference on board in support of keeping the government

06:49open and finishing off what is last year's business, which is chucking with the Democrats

06:58in the Senate at the time, not taking a single appropriations bill, putting it on the floor

07:02and moving it forward. This is a pilot from last year. This is FY 25. We want to get it

07:06into rearview mirror. And we think the best way to do that right now, at least based on what the

07:12House is going to do today and the president supports, is to pass this CR. The question is,

07:17will the Democrats fill it? And we'll find out soon enough.

07:23Have you gotten any indication that Democrats will join you? Are you willing to consider this

07:29alternate CR that? I think the problem you've got with what a temporary CR does,

07:41is it continues to hunt the problem down the road. Pretty soon you run up against April 30th

07:45deadline in which a sequester will take place, which will be a terrible outcome, particularly

07:50for defense. And it's a totally avoidable outcome if we will simply take action to do this today

07:58or this week. So my view is that the best way to fund the government and to deal with

08:04last year's business so we can move on to this year's business is to fund this year, vote for

08:09this CR. And I'm hoping that we'll have a record number of Democrats in order to do that. And I

08:14think anything else they put out there is a smokescreen. Because at this point, there's

08:19really one solution on the table. It keeps the government funded and addresses the core issues

08:23I think a lot of Democrats care about in terms of programs that they want to have funded through

08:27the end of the year. And we think it represents the best solution at the moment. Elon Musk said

08:34yesterday in a Fox business, there's up to $500 billion, $700 billion in waste in some of the

08:40intelligence programs. He says there are 20 million dead people in the Social Security database.

08:44Would it make sense for all of us to look at some of these programs for waste, fraud and abuse,

08:49even in Social Security and Medicare, given what Musk is saying? I think we want to look at

08:53all programs for waste, fraud and abuse. And I think what he was saying, my understanding is

08:58he was speaking specifically to the issue of waste, fraud and abuse, not to the underlying programs.

09:03But I think any program in government probably can be run more efficiently and probably in a

09:10less costly way with a better return to the American taxpayer. So I think looking at the

09:16whole of government and trying to determine whether or not there are savings that can be

09:20achieved through whether it's reductions in personnel, reductions in overhead, all those

09:27sorts of things ought to be on the table. And I think that's the point he was simply making. I

09:31don't think he was talking about the underlying programs.

John Thune Issues Warning To Senate Dems They'll Cause Shutdown If They Don't Back CR

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