Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan and Senate Majority Leader John Thune discuss the Senate’s pivotal role in executing Trump’s sweeping agenda, including the ambitious ‘big beautiful’ budget package. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Chapter 1: What actions are Senate Republicans taking to support Trump's agenda?
Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan recently sat down with Leader Thune to discuss what actions Senate Republicans are taking on everything from the economy to illegal immigration and national security. For this episode, we bring you that full interview.
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Sunday, May 4th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
Well, Leader Thune, we're so glad to sit down with you today. Can you share with us, of these first 100 days of the Trump administration, how are you feeling about where our country is at?
Chapter 2: How has Trump's leadership style changed Washington?
Well, I think the president has brought a brand new style leadership that actually focuses on fixing problems that our country has, which is a refreshing relief after the last four years of the Biden administration. And you can start, obviously, with the Biden border policy and how
the open border policy the previous administration and created so many problems for our country and so when trump came in he immediately took leadership on that issue and you've seen a dramatic and i say dramatically hugely consequential drop in the number of people coming across the border illegally so i think it's been an incredibly successful eventful and consequential first hundred days
And I'm looking forward to what's ahead. I think that the president's agenda is the one the American people wants to see accomplished. They want us to be good partners with him.
And I think in the end, if we can succeed on the things the president campaigned on, the American people voted for, they're going to continue to see Republicans in majorities in the House and Senate and a Republican in the White House.
Right. And what role do you think the Senate has played in these 100 first days that you believe are so successful?
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Chapter 3: What role does the Senate play in confirming presidential nominees?
Well, I think, you know, as you know, the Senate under the Constitution has the power of confirmation. And so there are a lot of all the executive branch nominees, the president's nominees for cabinet level positions all come to the United States Center for Confirmation.
So people don't realize this, but the Senate spends about two thirds of its time on personnel because in addition to all the executive branch positions, which there are about 1100, then you've got all the judiciary, all the judges on top of that. So I think getting his team in place, helping move quickly, we confirmed his cabinet at the fastest rate in 20 years.
We kept the Senate in session for 10 consecutive weeks for the first time in 15 years. And we hit 200 votes in the Senate for the first time at this point going back to the Reagan administration. So we're here. We're doing the work. There's a lot more to do. And obviously, making sure that all those key positions are filled in the administration is a big part of that.
But then we've got to start delivering on the legislative agenda. And that's where you get into politics. Energy independence, it's where you get into rebuilding the military, securing the border, providing tax relief for the American people, and reducing spending and getting our country on a more sustainable fiscal path.
Those are the things that the president campaigned on and we need to deliver on for the American people.
Now, let's talk more about those Senate confirmations. What would you say or who would you say was the biggest obstacle to get some of those nominees through?
Well, you know, it depended on the nominee. We had different issues and individuals that we were working with. But in the end, in the Senate, and fortunately on the executive calendar, these nominations are at 51 votes in the Senate. Most consequential legislation in the Senate takes 60. But at 51, we just had to make sure that we had 53 Republicans. We had to have at least 50 of them.
And then with Vice President Vance in the chair, we can get to 51. And we had that circumstance a couple of times, at least on a couple of the nominees. But each one was slightly different and different things that they were doing.
responding to but at the end of the day we got them all in and i think it's important in any administration when a president wins an election especially as decisively as president trump on this last election in november they deserve a lot of deference when it comes to the people that they want in those various agencies and departments delivering on his agenda so we work to get them all through and um you know knock on wood uh so far been very successful with that we got a long ways to go
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Chapter 4: What are the key issues the Senate must prioritize for Trump?
They use it to block a vote, even getting a vote on preventing biological males from competing against girls and girls sports. I mean, they literally didn't even allow us to get on that bill. They blocked through the use of the filibuster legislation that would have ensured that babies born after a botched abortion would be protected under the laws of this country.
I mean, that's how far out of the mainstream and how far out of step they are with, I think, core American values. And that's why I think the president was so successful. And I think, again, it's a basic level of common sense. I had a professor in business school at the University of South Dakota used to say, there are certain things that are just intuitively obvious.
And some of these things are intuitively obvious, and the Democrats can't seem to acknowledge that. So Lincoln-Riley, we did get cooperation. There were some Democrats who voted for it.
Chapter 5: How is national security tied to the Senate's legislative agenda?
And that was at least something where I think they recognized they were so far out of step that they actually realized that they needed to put up a vote that actually recognized that people who'd been harmed in this country by illegal immigrants, that those people needed to be prosecuted under the laws of this country.
And you spoke about burdensome Biden era regulations. Can you speak to how you've taken aim at some of these and others that you might want to take aim at in the future?
We have under the there was a law passed by Congress back in the 1990s called the Congressional Review Act. It enables Congress to repeal, if you will, regulations. put into place by the executive branch of the government by a vote in the House and the Senate. It obviously has to be signed into law by the president. So what happened is there's what they call a look-back period.
And so these regulations that were put in place by the Biden administration and that are eligible for this procedure, we have looked at a whole bunch of them, House and Senate, and we are in a systematic way, just going in and repealing a lot of these crazy regulations. And so we've done several of those already in the Senate.
The House is voting on more this week, and we're going to vote on two to three. We'll finish three of those this week too. So a lot of them are just part of the Biden administration's proposal to do away with conventional energy production. They're part of the whole Green New Deal initiative, but they all have a cost to our economy and a cost to the American people.
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Chapter 6: What challenges does the Senate face from the opposition?
And so our view is if they're eligible for this particular legislative procedure, we're going to do everything we can to get rid of them because they are costing consumers in this country more, they create more inflation for people in this country, and they make it more expensive and harder to do business in America.
Now, President Trump has really emphasized the importance of cleaning bad actors out of institutions and agencies like the FBI or the DOJ. What role do you think the Senate should play in helping with that? And do you think those goals have already been accomplished?
I think the president, just by virtue of changes in leadership in a lot of those departments and agencies, is accomplishing that objective. And obviously, we've helped him get the right people into those positions that he wants. wanted to see filling those positions. And so we're, that's a part of it. I think a big part of it's on him.
And I think a part of it is too, just us fulfilling our role constitutionally to confirm the people that he wants in those key positions. I mean, we're always gonna be looking, you know, Congress has an oversight role over all these departments and agencies. And, you know, it's up to us to have oversight hearings to examine how these agencies are implementing the policies or whether they are.
And, you know, you're going to have a whole new change in policies, which you've already seen when President Trump took office. And so right now, it's a function of us making sure that those new policies are being implemented in a way and having the right people in these agencies and departments to make that happen.
Right. And then on the border, I know we touched on this a little bit, but how do you think you can best complement the president's agenda or support the president's agenda when it comes to protecting our border?
Well, and this reconciliation bill is coming up. There will be a generational investment in border security. And part of it is, you know, Congress under the Constitution has the power of the purse. So the president sets the policy on the border, but he also needs resources in order to make sure that that policy gets implemented.
So we will work with him through reconciliation to see that he has the number of border agents, the number of detention beds, all the things that make
uh border security and continued success in terms of border security possible for him as administration he'll he'll set the tone he'll set the policy and that already has had a profound impact I mean you've seen 94 reduction if you can believe that I mean it's staggering uh the success he's had already at the southern border and and that frankly is just a change of leadership but he will need the tools to implement that policy going forward and so we will work with him to see that he has those
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