Senate Majority Leader John Thune returned to the program today:

Transcript:

HH: There’s a lot to cover today, but I’m very, very grateful that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, John Thune, has joined me this morning. Senator, welcome back. Good to have you. I believe it is the case that when you sign up to be majority leader, there’s a clause in your contract that says you’re obliged to defend the filibuster even when people who want you to defend the filibuster deny so on camera. Isn’t that not in the small print?

JT: (laughing) Yeah, I think you are correct there, Hugh. This is a conversation, as you know, that has gone on for many years, many decades, and through multiple administrations and Congresses. And it’s just a, you know, again, the founders, then they designed the country, one of the ways they divided power was they took the Article I branch of the government, and made it a bicameral process in which one of the institutions, the United States Senate, was non-majoritarian. They wanted a counter-majoritarian institution. The Senate represents that. It’s hard, sometimes. I know people, it’s hard to explain. And it’s not something that we all learn in physics growing up, but there’s a reason why the Senate is the way that it is. It’s designed to slow things down and make it more deliberative, and to give the minority in the country a voice in our government.

HH: Now Leader Thune, last week, ten days ago, President Trump was my guest. And normally, I just ask the President questions. And he’s the best interview in America, no offense, Leader, but he is. He just is. But in the middle of that, he turned around and said well, you don’t support the filibuster, do you, Hugh? And I said yeah, yes, I do, Mr. President. He did not ask me to explain that I think it’s the first line of defense to the Supreme Court being attacked, and that it’s therefore important to keep it where it is. How do you defend, and by the way, my listeners hate the filibuster. And they get on me whenever I defend it. How do you tell people? How do you explain it to them?

JT: Well, I mean, I think if historically, and you know this better than anybody, that if you look at, if you’re a conservative and you want to protect conservative policies, priorities, principles, you know, the Democrats have been in the majority of the Senate more years than not. And their agenda is an aggressive, expansive agenda, because they’re all about growing government. And conservatives, through the years, have been able to use the filibuster to protect against a lot of crazy ideas the Democrats have, like expanding the Supreme Court, and adding D.C. and Puerto Rico as states, and federalizing our elections, and abortion on demand, and redistribution of wealth in the country. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of just, you know, crazy left ideas that they would turn to were it not for the fact that Republicans were able to, because of the legislative filibuster, prevent that from happening. So it’s something that’s protected conservatives a lot more than it has liberals, that’s for sure.

HH: And it protects the Court.

JT: It does.

HH: And I think it’s probably unconstitutional to expand the Court anyway, but for another day. I want to move on to the second argument that the President makes often, though he didn’t make it to me. The Senate isn’t getting enough done. In fact, you cleared the nominations backlog, did you not?

JT: Yeah, we did. In fact, we’re way ahead of where we were, where he was in his first term because of the changes we made. And that’s an executive calendar issue, and again, something that Constitutionally, the Senate is responsible for, and another reason why you want to have a majority in the Senate, especially in Trump, the last two years of his term, because we’re still going to have judges coming through. We’re still going to have executive branch nominees coming through. And the Senate is the place where those get confirmed. And so it’s going to be really key and critical that we keep the majority. And I think that you know, you talk about issues like the Court, Hugh, or gun rights, or any of those things, historically, you know, somebody suggested, and the President does, too, and he probably did to you when you talked to him, about well, the Dems are going to do it anyway.

HH: Yes.

JT: And the truth of the matter is it’s a hypothetical. And maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But as somebody has once described it, the Dems at some point may try to steal the car, but we’re not going to hand them the keys. And all that stuff I mentioned that they would do if the filibuster was gone are things that we would then own. And I just, I don’t think that’s where Republicans in this country want to end up, or want us to end up. But it’s very hard to explain that, to your point, to an audience that really doesn’t care about that. They just want to get results, and they want to get them fast.

HH: Well, that leads me to my next question. I get that argument. The Senate hasn’t done anything. The Working Families Tax Cut continues to roll out in its benefits, especially in the area of school choice. I mean, school choice has revolutionized, I believe Senator Cruz put that into the One Big Beautiful Bill, aka the Working Families Tax Cut. But do you think the country is quite aware, yet, how big a bite of legislation that was?

JT: It’s the most consequential thing I’ve done in my time in public life. And if I don’t do anything else, we got the first entitlement reform we’ve gotten in my entire time in office, the Medicaid, getting rid of the waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program, the SNAP program were historic in terms of their accomplishments. But to your, to the broader point, yeah, he included a hundred pieces of legislation – school choice, a ban of federal funding for Planned Parenthood which will expire, that was a one-year deal. That’s all we could get past the parliamentarian, newborn accounts for kids, child care tax credits, something the Democrats talk about but have never done anything about, and this President, President Trump, working with a Republican Congress, achieved that. So, and you know, there were so many other things in there, it’s hard. And I think that’s one of the reasons or challenges we’ve had, Hugh, is that getting out there, it becomes, there are so many things you can shoot at. And I think as we talk about this out on the campaign trail, we’ve got to home in on the things that are impacting people’s daily lives and remind them about some of the things we’ve accomplished.

HH: Well, one of the things that is underway now is another reconciliation process. And I hope that there is Defense spending in there, but at least there’s got to be Department of Homeland Security in there. Where does that stand right now, Leader Thune?

JT: Well, right now, of course, the reconciliation 2.0, and you, the first one we did last year, which did literally a decade of legislating in one bill, now we’re going to have to fund the DHS, both ICE and CBP, through a reconciliation bill. But there is talk now, because we have a third bullet available to us, a third legislative vehicle of what a reconciliation 3.0 might look like. And you know, the House is going through that process. We are, too, having conversations about timing and what it might include, et cetera. But we are looking for good ideas, ways to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in government, reform entitlement programs, make them run more efficiently, and obviously look for tax policies that will allow the American people to keep more money in their pocket and quit sending so much to Washington. The one thing that’s clear in all the time I’ve been here, and that is when Democrats are in power, they grow government. And it’s very, very hard to unwind that. But even when they had unified control of the government during the Biden administration, they did two big reconciliation bills which dramatically expanded the size of government, spent $4 trillion dollars, and it wasn’t paid for, and created all kinds of crazy policies and green new deal policies we’re now paying a price for and trying to go back and unwind. And that’s why it’s really important that we keep majorities here in the Congress. And right now, with a Republican President, it’s a historic time. So if there’s another reconciliation bill that we think works, and that we can get through both the House and the Senate where the margins are very narrow, we’ll take a hard look at it.

HH: Can we hone in for a moment on Chairwoman Collins, Senator Collins from Maine? I spend a lot of time in Maine. She’s beloved. She’s like Saint Susan up there. She is chair of Appropriations. And she’s a little bit skeptical of the trillion and a half dollar Defense budget. And I’ll find the chance to talk to her about it. But what do you understand her concerns to be about that:

JT: I think part of it is, and I’ve sat down with her, in fact just yesterday, to talk about Appropriations. And obviously, what has traditionally happened, Hugh, around here is that every dollar you increase you get in the Defense budget, Democrats demand an increase in non-Defense spending. So they get more of their social spending in exchange for our national security spending. And so she’s trying to figure out how, what the number we can achieve, do the most we can. She’s a big Defense hawk, as are most Senate Republicans, and in particularly now, when we live in a very dangerous world and a very, I would say, challenging threat environment. We need to make sure that we are paying attention to national security. We’ve always said in this office if you don’t get national security right, the rest is conversation. You’ve got to be able to defend the country. And right now, that needs to be priority number one. So what she’s working through, how can she optimize what we can do on Defense to take care of the country’s national security needs and still fund the other agencies of government, but not in a way that explodes cost. And I think that’s the challenge the chairman of the Appropriations Committee you face here in the Senate. You’ve got Democrats who have very different priorities than the Republicans do, and you have to figure out how to strike that balance.

HH: We’ve got 45 seconds, Senator. I think Senator Collins will hold onto her seat against Graham Platner, because he’s a nut. But what about the rest of the map? How do you feel about…they’ll still spend $100 million dollars against her. Are we going to get outspent? Are we going to hold onto the Senate?

JT: Well, we’re doing really well on the Senate Leadership Fund’s fundraising. The NRSC is doing really well. RNC is doing well. The Democrat candidates, because of Act Blue, raise a lot of money. But Maine is a good case and point. Susan Collins will have what she needs, and she’s running against a flat-out crazy guy who Democrats never would have used to wanted to defend. But this year, for some reason, he’s become their darling. So I think we’re going to be fine, but we’ve got our work cut out for us.

HH: Senator Thune, always good to talk to you, Leader. Keep coming back. I appreciate the time, Majority Leader John Thune.

End of interview.