John Thune

I’m all about getting it back open again. I think shutdowns are— nobody wins, and I think honestly, for the most part, they’re stupid.

If the government shuts down, it is on the Senate Democrats.

Vote to open up the government, that issue goes away, right?

Democrats are well aware of the damage of a government shutdown.

As of this morning, critical federal employees including members of the military, Border Patrol agents and air traffic controllers are working without pay.

I don’t think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people.

This Democrat shutdown is actually delaying progress on the issues that Democrats claim to be interested in.

But what we are talking about--the Democrat leader and his colleagues have the same leverage on November 21. This is a short-term CR. This is what we do all the time around here, as witnessed by the chart you were just using. It is 24…

So the Senator from New York--the way that we have done it was a different business model than the one he used. We actually had the Appropriations Committee sit down, and the date that they come up with, November 21, was agreed upon by the…

I will. I will. And the Ukraine issue you are talking about wasn't a CR. That was an entirely different issue. So don't throw that into this mix.

Hopefully, we’re going to pick up some more and eventually, we’ll get enough to pass this thing and keep the government open.

I am hoping there are enough reasonable Democrats over there.

We’ll probably set up some votes later in the week, but we’ll observe the Jewish holiday.

We are just 14 hours away from a government shutdown. The House has passed a clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution to fund the government until November the 21st. The president is ready to sign it. Senate Democrats are standing in the…

This decision, in my judgment at this point in time, is up to a handful of Democrats.

The ball is in their court.

There needs to be oversight, there needs to be accountability, and there needs to be transparency into this decision making process

The secretary has a responsibility, an obligation, to restore and return the trust of the American people in the decision making process there

We ought to be very guarded in making broad assertions and make sure that they are well grounded in science and medicine

I think that science ought to guide these discussions, these conversations and our decision making around our health

I’m obviously very concerned about that

We're prepared, when we get back, to have a vote on a bill already passed by the House, ready to be signed by the president.

Maybe there is something we can do in the middle as a solution.

It’s something that, yeah, some of our members are paying attention to.

We’re going to fix this today, and restore the longtime Senate precedent of expeditious confirmation, and the Senate’s role as first and foremost a legislative body.