Senate Majority Chief John Thune and Minority Chief Chuck Schumer debate authorities funding on Senate flooring on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025.
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Majority Chief John Thune and Minority Chief Chuck Schumer obtained right into a uncommon direct back-and-forth on the Senate flooring forward of the shutdown deadline.
“Democrats have a choice to make. They can shut down the government and subject the American people to all the problems that come with a shutdown, many of which, as I’ve said, they’ve enumerated in the countless quotes they’ve made in the past,” Thune stated. “Or they can join Republicans to pass a clean, nonpartisan short-term funding bill and keep the government’s lights on. For the sake of the American people, Mr. President, I really hope they choose the latter.”
Thune yielded the ground, at which level Schumer borrowed the chart Thune was referring to, which confirmed that 100% of Democrats had voted for practically each Biden-era persevering with decision. Schumer agreed with the figures, however stated the context was completely different.
“Yes, that’s true. Guess why? In each case, Democrats negotiated with Republicans and said, let’s have a bipartisan bill. The leader says it’s a clean bill. It’s a partisan bill. Not once were Democrats asked for what input should be in the bill. We were not told about it. We were not asked about it,” he stated. “You cannot pass legislation in the Senate, when it comes to appropriations, unless it is bipartisan.”
As Thune stood at his desk throughout the aisle from Schumer, the Democratic chief reiterated his place that his occasion needs to increase well being care tax credit and limit the president’s capacity to rescind funding.
“To say the appropriations process is working is wrong. It’s not working,” Schumer stated.
“The way that we’ve done it — and it’s a different business model than the one he used — we actually have the Appropriations Committee sit down, and the date that they came up with, Nov. 21, was agreed upon by the House and Senate appropriators, Republican and Democrat,” Thune stated, referring to the date that funding could be prolonged to below the Home-passed persevering with decision.
“The Democrat leader and his colleagues have the same leverage on November the 21st. This is a short-term CR. This is what we do all the time around here,” Thune continued, holding up a duplicate of the invoice and pointing it at Schumer. “We have until the end of the year to fix the ACA credit issue, and we’re happy, as I said yesterday and I’ve said on multiple occasions, to sit down with you to do that.”
Thune then walked off the ground as Schumer reclaimed his time.
