During remarks on the Senate floor Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) spoke about the Senate's actions six months into President Trump's administration.
00:00Mr. President, yesterday marks six months since President Trump took office.
00:05And today is the 200th day of the Republican majority here in the United States Senate.
00:11And in that time, the Trump administration and Senate Republicans have been hard at work executing the mandate we received from the American people last November.
00:18We already have a number of accomplishments on the list.
00:20We got started by sending the Lake and Riley Act to President Trump's desk during the first week in office to keep criminal, illegal immigrants off our streets.
00:30President Trump signed the Halt Fentanyl Act last Wednesday, which permanently classifies fentanyl analogs as the deadly drugs that they are.
00:40On Friday, he signed the Genius Act, a landmark bill to bring digital assets into the mainstream and secure U.S. leadership and financial innovation.
00:47And the first rescissions package in three decades is headed to the President for his signature.
00:54We passed measures to end 16 burdensome Biden-era regulations.
00:58We passed the Take It Down Act to combat non-consensual explicit images being shared online.
01:06And, of course, two weeks, Mr. President, on the 4th of July, the President signed into law the big, beautiful bill to deliver permanent tax relief for the American people to make our country safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
01:19And, Mr. President, we have additional bills coming down the pike.
01:22The Armed Services Committee under Chairman Wicker recently reported the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026.
01:29And the Appropriations Committee under Chair Collins has reported out four bipartisan bills, which we will begin considering this week.
01:37I said last year that I was committed to bringing appropriations bills to the floor through regular order, and we are in the process of doing exactly that.
01:44Of course, any regular order of consideration of appropriation bills is going to require cooperation from Democrats.
01:51And this week, we'll get a glimpse of where Democrats are on this issue.
01:56It was deeply disappointing to hear the Democrat leader threaten to shut down the government if Republicans dared to pass legislation to trim just one-tenth of one percent of the federal budget.
02:07But I'm hopeful that that that is not the position of the Democrat Party.
02:12Time will tell.
02:14Mr. President, the Senate has also important work to do to confirm the President's nominees.
02:19We started out this year by confirming 21 of the President's Cabinet nominees at the fastest pace in more than two decades.
02:26And we've kept up our focus on getting President Trump's team into place.
02:30We've now confirmed 96 civilian nominees, far outpacing where the Senate was at this point in the first Trump administration.
02:39And the only reason, frankly, Mr. President, that we're not moving faster is because of Democrats' historic, that is right, historic level of obstruction.
02:50Democrats have been forcing cloture votes for every civilian nominee, something that is without precedent.
03:01President Trump is the first president on record not to have a single civilian nominee go by unanimous consent or voice vote at this point in his presidency.
03:14The first president on record.
03:18Think about that, Mr. President.
03:20And Democrats are using this strategy even on non-controversial nominees.
03:25Almost a quarter of the nominees whose confirmation process Democrats have dragged out actually got more than 60 votes here on the Senate floor.
03:36Mr. President, the American people gave President Trump a mandate.
03:40And he deserves to have his team in place to execute that mandate for the American people.
03:45Democrats can continue to drag this process out.
03:48But Republicans are going to get these nominees confirmed.
