Free Republic

South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune on Monday confirmed his expected run for Senate leadership in the wake of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announcing he would step down in November. McConnell has indicated that will complete his Senate term, which ends in 2027. His announcement came amid mounting internal frustrations within the conference over his handling of border and budget issues. "Well, I hope to be, and I’m going to do everything I can to convince my colleagues," he told KELO-TV, when asked if he plans to become Senate leader. "They're the voters. They're the ones who ultimately make...

Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’s successor needed to be independent from former President Donald Trump. Partial transcript as follows: JON KARL: By the way, I should point out that the former president’s had some choice words for you as – as you no doubt know. I think he called you – or questioned whether or not you were crazy or just stupid, a jerk, a RINO, a weak – anyway, we could go on. But – but how important is it for whoever the Senate leader is to...

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and other pro-establishment Republican senators want former President Donald Trump to butt out of their back-room negotiations with pro-migration Democrats. “It’s not helpful,” Thune, who is the top deputy to Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), told CNN. “There are a number of pieces in there that are good, conservative border policies that we’ve been trying to get done for years,” he told reporters. “There are some folks without question that don’t want to get any solution to a problem because they think that might help the other side,” retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told CNN....

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has locked arms with President Joe Biden in calling for a deal to surrender to unlimited migration that would include tens of billions in foreign aid to Ukraine. The retreat would hand the White House a key election year win and surrender the best leverage Republicans have had in decades to make substantive changes in border policies that could alleviate one of the American people’s greatest concerns potentially for generations. Senate negotiators have led efforts for months to pair some sort of border security package with billions of supplemental funding, primarily to advance Ukraine’s floundering war...

Senate Republicans nervous about former President Trump’s lead in presidential primary polls are impatiently awaiting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to jump into the race. GOP lawmakers don’t expect DeSantis to make his move until after the Florida legislative session ends in early May, but the waiting game is playing on nerves, with some thinking DeSantis has lost political momentum since his big reelection win in November. [cut] Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said he also expects DeSantis to keep his focus on Florida for a while, saying “he’s probably got a window that takes him — if he wants...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Patrick Kennedy was in Congress, he would sneak in his treatments for substance abuse over the holidays, in between congressional work periods. And he refused mental health treatment recommended by his doctors, worried he would be recognized in that wing of the hospital. On Thursday, the office of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate after a bruising campaign during which he suffered a stroke, announced he had checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression. The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, tweeted praise for Fetterman, saying he hopes his “courage...

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Thune (R-SD) responded to a question on the possibility of a government shutdown by stating that “anything right now is on the table” and whether a deal is reached largely depends on how badly Democrats “want to get a deal to not blow it up with all kinds of new non-defense-related spending.” Thune also argued that the massive increase in spending “has contributed to and been largely responsible for the run-up that we’ve seen in inflation.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Monday that he “couldn’t disagree more” with former President Trump’s call to terminate parts of the Constitution in order to be reinstated president and said such comments present “a golden opportunity” for Trump’s rivals in 2024. Thune, who was just reelected to a fourth Senate term, noted that federal officeholders take an oath to uphold the Constitution and added that he takes his seriously. “Of course I disagree with that. I swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, and it is a bedrock principle — it is the principle, the bedrock of...

NEWS: John Thune, the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, says in interview Senate Repubs want to leverage the next US debt limit increase to force federal spending cuts and changes to Social Security and other entitlement programs. “There’s a set of solutions there that we really need to take on if we’re going to get serious about making these programs sustainable and getting this debt bomb at a manageable level before it’s too late,” Thune told Bloomberg editors and reporters in Washington.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the Senate GOP whip and a likely contender in any future battle to replace Mitch McConnell as GOP leader, is backing a bill that is effectively a bailout for the discredited corporate media. The bill is called the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), and has been extensively covered by Breitbart News in the past. It is unclear if Thune notified his GOP colleagues before he decided to co-sponsor the controversial Democrat-pushed bill. His office did not answer that question.

The system of affluence and influence has been created to self-sustain regardless of party affiliation. The Senate is one club with one ideological perspective. Within that club rule #1 dominates: none of the members will ever expose another member. So, when there is corrupt activity within the Senate no-one from within the institution with expose another. This is the code of Omerta within the upper chamber. This is the way of the “my good friend” Senate and how it operates. Current Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has a leadership group who carry out the institutional objectives of the upper chamber as...

ore than 24 hours after the FBI’s “unannounced raid” on former President Donald Trump’s home, some in Senate GOP leadership including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have refused to condemn the rogue agency’s actions against their party leader. While House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy rushed to condemn the Department of Justice’s “intolerable state of weaponized politicization” the night of the raid and even announced plans to “conduct immediate oversight of this department,” neither McConnell, Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair Roy Blunt, nor Senate Republican Whip John Thune had publicly mentioned a word to their constituents, the press, or their colleagues...

It was a busy evening at the Sioux Empire Fair. Caught up with lots of South Dakotans, and got in a little grandkid time. Oh, and some great fair food. #sdsummer pic.twitter.com/uPzAI688fr— Senator John Thune (@SenJohnThune) August 9, 2022

Senate Minority Whip John Thune said this week that Republicans "welcome" former President Donald Trump's help in taking back the Senate majority, but repeating his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen "takes our eyes off the ultimate prize." "President Trump still has a tremendous following among our supporters across the country and, you know, exercises that influence, or at least attempts to, on a daily basis," Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News. "But I think ultimately for us as Republican senators our job right now is to try to get the majority back in 2022 and provide that...

Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican and a close ally of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), on Saturday announced he will run for reelection in 2022. In a statement posted to Twitter, Thune said he is “uniquely positioned” to serve South Dakota and be “a strong and effective senator who can deliver the results they expect."

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a close ally and his No. 2, to run for reelection next year as Thune weighs retiring. Asked on Wednesday about the possibility that Thune retires, McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that "I certainly hope he won't." "John Thune is an outstanding senator. He's done a great job as whip. ...It would be a real setback from the country and our party if he retires," McConnell added.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday endorsed Herschel Walker’s bid to oust Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in the latest sign that GOP leaders are warming up to the former football star’s Georgia Senate campaign. “I am proud to endorse Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate in Georgia,” said Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican leader. “Herschel Walker is a fighter, a uniter, and a proven winner with the ability to bring Republicans together to win in November.” Thune is the fifth Republican senator to throw his support behind Walker and the first member of Senate GOP leadership to do...

John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, is struggling with a crucial decision: Whether to ask South Dakota voters for six more years in office. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Senate Republican, says Iowa voters are increasingly urging him to run again, and he's now considering moving up his much-anticipated announcement about whether to extend his 40 years of service in the chamber. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont -- a Senate veteran of 46 years who is third in line of presidential succession -- says he'll make a decision "after I go snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing." GOP Sen. Ron Johnson,...

If President Joe Biden sincerely wants to address our country’s infrastructure needs, he doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Lawmakers historically work across the aisle to invest in infrastructure, and one doesn’t have to look far for recent examples.