John Thune

This is a short-term funding resolution that buys us some time, but we need to do the full year.

But I think there are a lot of opportunities out there.

There are things like permitting reform.

There are things like AI, which has become a very, very big issue in our lives.

We've got to do a farm bill.

We've got to do a highway, a transportation bill.

There's a lot of work for Congress to do.

that has been put on the, you know, kind of on the back burner while the government's been shut down.

But, you know, the most important thing that we do is, you know, take care and make sure that we protect the country.

I always tell people if you don't get national security right, the rest is conversation.

So we did get the defense authorization bill across the finish line in the Senate.

We tried, as I said earlier, to put the defense appropriations bill on the floor, which funds all those priorities, and the Democrats blocked it.

But taking care of America's national security interests in what is a very dangerous world is going to continue to be a big priority for us.

And then, like I said, there are lots of other legislative priorities that I think, and there are some areas where we can work together.

There's some things that we can do

in a bipartisan way with Democrats, but we've got to get past this government shutdown and the Democrats holding the federal employees hostage, basically, if you will, to try and get a bunch of unrelated policy things that they want to get done.

I'm perfectly happy to have the conversation and talk with them about some of those things, but we can't do that while the government's being held hostage.

This is now the longest full shutdown in history, but everybody here is

has voted now 11 different times to open up the government, and we are going to keep voting to open up the government.

And eventually, the Democrats, hopefully sooner or later, are going to come around.