Thune Joins Bret Baier on Fox News

Click here to watch. WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Bret Baier on Fox News. On Jay Clayton’s nomination: “I hope he gets through this week … The confirmation hearing will happen tomorrow in the Intelligence Committee. They will report him out. We will take him up as soon as we can, but that will take some cooperation from Democrats. If they want to, they can slow-walk it … They can’t slow it down forever – we’ll get him on the floor – but if we want to get him confirmed by the end of the week, we’re going to need a little bit of help. And right now, we’re getting mixed signals about whether or not the Democrats will participate and help with that.” On FISA: “FISA has, in an unprecedented way, gone dark. And the FISA, which is short for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, there is a section there, Section 702, which is the principal tool by which we keep this country safe. It prevents terrorist attacks, it’s helped us in times of war, protects American citizens, and that program right now [has] ‘gone dark.’ “When we say that, it’s no longer authorized by the Congress. And so the Democrats had agreed to passing it with reforms that Republicans had agreed to. It was a bipartisan deal, and then when Pulte was nominated, they completely block voted against even getting on the bill. So right now, in my view, they own this. That was an irresponsible thing to do on a program that’s critical for America’s national security.” On Iran: “I give the president great credit for having the guts and the courage to do the hard thing that no president for the last 50 years has been willing to do, and that is to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability and significantly diminish their military capabilities in the region. How it winds down now is the thing we’re all paying attention to, and in that respect, I think it’s the old Reagan axiom: you trust but you verify. You’ve got to make sure that … we’ve got a good path forward here.” On the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act: “The housing bill, carefully negotiated, what we call four corners – bipartisan, bicameral, Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate. It is an issue that directly gets at the heart of the affordability question for a lot of Americans. It creates additional supply of housing in this country, makes housing more affordable, and so I’m hoping that’s something, too, that we can complete, get on the president’s desk, get signed into law …”