Thune Joins Fox News and Newsmax

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WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Martha MacCallum on Fox News and Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax.

On the Working Families Tax Cuts:

"[T]he returns that are being filed this year, on average, the refunds are [nearly 20] percent higher than they were during the Biden administration. And if you're somebody who claims a deduction for tipped income, overtime, or if you're a senior who's taking the new increased standard deduction, you're seeing your tax refund up … [Republicans] prevented a $4 trillion tax increase, and we have 100 million filers in this country who take the standard deduction, the increased standard deduction …"

"It's a new … day in America in terms of working families and the opportunities they have available to them because of the more money they have in their pockets as a result of what we did last summer."

On Democrats' defund the police agenda:

"Democrats have made it virtually impossible to fund all of the government because they have adopted the open borders, defund law enforcement position for which they have been known in the past, but which I thought they had gotten over. But they clearly … made a conscious decision that they want to play politics.

"And I think this is about their political base. That's what they're demanding, and as a consequence, we're having to come up with a different way of funding ICE and CBP into the future. They are funded today. Thankfully, we had the foresight last summer to know that this was probably going to be a problem and so we pre-funded DHS and, or at least CBP and ICE within DHS and, but now we're going to have to do that into the future as well, because I don't think the Democrats are ever going to come off of this position of open borders and defund law enforcement. That seems to be where they're comfortable. And I think it's a loser with the American people, but we'll find out."

On Iran:

"[Chuck Schumer] has a versatility of conviction on these issues, Martha, which changes over time depending on who's in power in the White House. Right now, the Democrats are blinded by their hatred of President Trump. It is Trump Derangement Syndrome. Anything that he's for, they're against. And the military success that we've already had with Iran is going to be transformational in terms of the impact that it has on national security - not only in that region, but also in the entire world … it's been a huge success.

"The issue now, of course, is the Strait of Hormuz, which the administration and our military leadership is singularly focused on ensuring that the shipping lanes are open and that we take the … leverage that the Iranian leadership has, and that is the economic leverage they have over that strait, and open up those shipping lanes."

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