Thune: 'What Could We Have Done Differently?' Glad You Asked, Senator.

Greetings, and welcome to Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. On this date in 1954, Ellis Island closed its doors after processing some 12 million immigrants, every one of them through an actual front door, with an actual line and actual paperwork.

My calendar says it’s Happy Hour Day, Chicken Soup for the Soul Day, and Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day. Clock out a little early for happy hour, since it’s Thursday and close enough. Have a bowl of chicken soup while there’s a chill in the air. And order a pizza loaded with everything except the anchovies. Nobody ever ordered those on purpose anyway.

Today in History:

1859: French acrobat Jules Léotard performs the first flying trapeze act in Paris and lends his name to the outfit he wore.
1892: The Allegheny Athletic Association pays former Yale star William “Pudge” Heffelfinger $500 to play in a game, making him the first known professional football player.
1912: A search party finds the frozen bodies of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and two companions in Antarctica, eight months after they died returning from the South Pole.
1918: Austria proclaims itself a republic the day after World War I ends.
1927: Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, clearing the way for Josef Stalin.
1942: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins, a three-day fight that ends Japan’s efforts to retake the island.
1954: Ellis Island closes after processing roughly 12 million immigrants since 1892.
1980: NASA’s Voyager 1 flies past Saturn, sending back close-up images of its rings and moons.
1981: The space shuttle Columbia lifts off on its second mission, the first time a crewed spacecraft is reused.
1990: Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for what becomes the World Wide Web.
2001: American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens shortly after takeoff from JFK, killing all 260 people aboard and five on the ground, two months after 9/11.

Birthdays Today include: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women’s suffrage pioneer from Seneca Falls, N.Y.; Auguste Rodin, sculptor of The Thinker; Grace Kelly, actress from High Noon and Rear Window and princess of Monaco; Wallace Shawn, actor from The Princess Bride; Al Michaels, sportscaster who called the “Miracle on Ice”; Booker T. Jones, organist with Booker T. & the M.G.’s (“Green Onions”); Neil Young, singer-songwriter of “Heart of Gold”; Nadia Comăneci, the gymnast who scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history; Ryan Gosling, actor from La La Land; and Anne Hathaway, actress from The Devil Wears Prada. If today’s your birthday, too, happy birthday from all of us here.

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So, the day before yesterday, we watched Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) essentially making excuses with FOX News' Bret Baier on "Special Report."

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, look, I think that I think most of the margins in a lot of these states were significant enough. I think it was you got to accept it for what it is. Like I said, I don't sugarcoat it. I just think we learn from it. We get better, and we figure out how to get back in the majority.
BRET BAIER: Well, you understand that people are angry.
THUNE: Sure.
BAIER: Really angry.
THUNE: Of course they do.
BAIER: Some of them are really angry at you.
THUNE: Yeah, well, and they have been for a long time and that's been going on for some time. This isn't new. This is kind of a daily experience for me, at least in the online world.
BAIER: And is the president one of them?
THUNE: The president, I've talked to the president, talked to him over the weekend and, you know, obviously he's frustrated with the Senate like every president is. The Senate is a hard place to do business. We have, you know, it's a deliberative body. It's a non-majoritarian body by design. The founders made it that way, unlike the House of Representatives and made it hard to get things done.
BAIER: You called today's meeting open and honest. What did those senators tell you that you got wrong?
THUNE: Well, I don't know that they necessarily told me anything I got wrong. I mean, I think that we accomplished a lot. If you look at what we did in these two years, and my question for them was, what could we have done differently?
I mean, we survived two long government shutdowns without giving the Democrats a single one of their demands. The working families tax cuts legislation was historic. First time we've done meaningful entitlement reform in three decades. The tax policy made permanent. Trump newborn accounts, you know, educational choice. We talked about all of them.

I want you to focus on one line of his response: "Well, I don't know that they necessarily told me anything I got wrong."

Hold up a second, John. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the senators who now didn’t say you got something wrong the same ones you told us wouldn't vote to drop the filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act?

Back in March, you stood at the podium and said, "The votes aren't there, one, to nuke the filibuster, and the votes aren't there for a talking filibuster." Fine. I'll take you at your word. So the people who couldn't bring themselves to make Democrats stand at their desks and talk sat down in a room this week and found nothing to criticize? Of course they didn't.

What we have here is Thune trying to make a total disaster small potatoes.

And while I'll grant that the accomplishments he lists sound impressive, what difference do they make? Republicans held the line through two shutdowns, made the tax cuts permanent, got school choice, and got the Trump accounts across the finish line. Good. Now look at what got left on the table. Voter integrity was the one issue that protects every other win on the list, and Thune and his GOP senators treated it as optional.

Here's the problem. Democrats take the gavel in January. Yes, President Donald Trump still holds a veto pen, so Chuck Schumer can't simply repeal the tax law by Valentine's Day. He doesn't have to. A Democrat majority controls the floor, the committees, the subpoenas, and the confirmation pipeline. You bragged about confirming judges faster than anyone since Reagan. That pipeline closes in January. And the 2028 elections now run on the same voter rolls the SAVE America Act would have cleaned up.

Then comes the punchline. The day Democrats hold the Senate and the White House at the same time, they'll nuke the filibuster before the coffee gets cold. They've told us so for years. You spent two years protecting a rule your opponents will happily torch the moment it gets in their way.

And look, Senator: Spare me the civics lecture about the founders. The founders designed a Senate that passes bills by majority vote. The Constitution never mentions a filibuster. The 60-vote cloture threshold you treat like holy writ comes from a 1975 Senate rules change. Madison didn't write it. The 60-vote cloture threshold you treat like holy writ comes from a 1975 rules change, passed by a Democrat-controlled Senate. Madison didn’t write it. Democrats wearing leisure suits wrote it. Walter Mondale wrote it. And you can bet Mondale’s heirs, whom even Mondale himself would consider too radical today, will tear it up the minute it stands between them and something they want.

Notice how Thune describes his critics as a "daily experience for me, at least in the online world." It's a neat trick. If the anger stays online, it isn't real. Well, in case nobody's noticed, the voters made it real on Election Day. And Thune is down to making excuses.

Thune asked his colleagues, "What could we have done differently?" Here's your answer, Senator: The thing you said couldn't be done.

The reason you got by with your inaction, Senator, and were elected to the position of minority leader, is that they didn’t want the SAVE Act passed, either. They wanted your foot dragging.

That acceptance of your actions, even absent Democrats running the place, doesn’t bode well for the outcome of the next two years. It means the Democrats won't have any serious opposition, and that multiplies the problems for this country.

The GOP got rid of a number of unreliable actors this year. Thune should have been one of them.

Thought for the Day: Ellis Island had a front door, a back door and a paper trail. That's called being a country.

VIP members: I'll ask this directly: Does Thune have your support?

Take care, gang. I hope to see your faces here tomorrow.

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