Washington — 

U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” to discuss Congress’ role in the coronavirus outbreak response. Thune also discussed the recent coronavirus outbreak in South Dakota on the Senate floor.

Thune on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom”:  Click here to watch the video.

“You have to meet in the middle, and the Speaker, if she pushes something out on the floor – at this point, what we don’t need is show votes on the floor. This process should not be politicized. The discussion should occur between the president’s team, the speaker and her folks, and of course ultimately Republicans and Democrats in the Senate as well. But I would hope that those negotiations would commence before something gets ruled out. I think there needs to be an agreement and that agreement, as we saw last week when we moved the $8 billion package to help provide relief and resources to our medical professionals who were out there combatting the disease is an example of how this should work. It should be bicameral but should be bipartisan and hopefully in the end that’s what will happen.”

Thune on the U.S. Senate Floor: Click here to watch the video.

“Yesterday afternoon South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem notified me that multiple residents of South Dakota have tested positive for coronavirus. While this is obviously something we had hoped to avoid, we knew that this was a possibility, and South Dakota has spent weeks preparing to deal with an outbreak. Over the next few days, public health officials will be checking into where these individuals have been so that anyone with whom they came in contact can be notified. My staff and I are working closely with the governor and her team, and I will continue to carefully monitor this situation.”

Read Thune’s full statement here.