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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined America’s Newsroom on Fox News.

On Democrats’ calls to shut down the government:

“[I]n [Senator Schumer’s] case, what he’s hearing is the far left, which has a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and they’re making a lot of noise out there, but they don’t represent the heart of the country. The middle of this country, the middle of this electorate wants us to get things done, wants the president to be successful, wants us to make government smaller and more efficient and to modernize it through technology – and that’s what this is all about. But you have to have the government funded in order to do that.

“So the left can make a lot of noise, but they’re speaking to a very small audience out there. And the people in this country who get up and go to work every day want to see the president and those of us who are here in Congress working together as a team to make a difference for their betterment. And that’s what, in the end, funding the government is a part of that.

“And the Democrats, as I said, left us with this mess from last year, and so we are doing everything we can to clean it up so we can start new on the president’s agenda for this next year. But we’ve got to get this out of the way first, and right now, it’s the Democrats who are standing in the way of that.”

On passing the continuing resolution:

“[W]e need eight [votes], Bill. That’s the magic number, and I’m hopeful [Democrats will] deliver that, because I think… they realize that this is on them. The president’s on board with this. The House passed it. We’ve got Republican support. We’ve got more than the necessary 51 votes in the Senate to pass it.

“But in the Senate, on an issue like this, it takes 60 votes, a supermajority, so we need some Democrat help, and we need at least eight Democrats. Hopefully it’ll be more. I think it’s the right thing to do for the country, and hopefully they’ll come to that conclusion.”

On the appropriations process:

“[Democrats are] still going through the five stages of grief after the last election, but this is why they lost the last election. It’s these far-left policies, the far-left rhetoric and appealing to a small corner of the electorate instead of working for the good of the American people.

“And there’s a lot of revisionist history right now going on among Democrats in the Senate. I’ve heard a lot of them on the floor and in interviews talking about how we got here. We got here because they didn’t do the work last year. We are cleaning up their mess, and we’ll get this done, and then we’ll turn and pivot and start focusing on fiscal year ‘26 and the president’s agenda – which includes reconciliation and tax cuts.”