Thune Joins Squawk Box on CNBC

Click here t o watch. WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Squawk Box on CNBC. On the Secure America Act: “We had to use [reconciliation] because Democrats wouldn’t fund ICE and [Border Patrol] through the normal appropriations process, so we had to do it with Republican-only votes. It got a little complicated along the way, but we were successful in defeating all the poison-pill amendments that would have taken it down. And this week, hopefully, the House will vote on it, put it on the president’s desk, and we’ll get those important law enforcement agencies funded. “It is really unfortunate we had to resort to this … The Democrat mantra now is defund the police, open borders, and we’re seeing more evidence of that this week as they block … the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization, which is a critical tool that our intelligence agencies use to keep Americans safe.” On Democrats’ sanctuary city policies: “I think there is a high level of frustration at the sanctuary city policies and what they are doing to a lot of our major cities in this country. And I think the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Mullin, obviously are coming up with ideas that they think would help at least incentivize a lot of these cities to start behaving in a way that doesn’t give sanctuary to criminal illegal aliens in this country … I think the sanctuary city policy, coupled with defund the police, coupled with open borders – these are just Democrat policies right now that are anti-law enforcement, and frankly, are dangerous with respect to a lot of America’s biggest cities and ensuring that those communities and those streets are safe and secure for people who live there.” On reconciliation: “A reconciliation 3.0 is something that’s been considered and talked about. There’d have to be a specific reason for doing it, and you’d have to ensure that you’ve got 218 in the House and 50 votes in the Senate for it. These have become increasingly hard as we’ve gotten into this year and a few of these primaries have gotten behind us. There are votes that are harder to get now in the Senate on some of these things, but we did fend off a lot of really bad poison-pill amendments last week on the last reconciliation bill. “What happens on the next one remains to be seen … but we’re not ruling it out, let me put it that way. Open to it, but also recognizing it has some serious challenges ahead of it if we get another reconciliation bill on the floor of the Senate.”