Hoyer Discusses House Republican's Dysfunction and the Need to Keep the Government Working For The People on MSNBC's Morning Joe
WASHINGTON, DC — This morning, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) joined Morning Joe on MSNBC to discuss the dysfunction of the House Republican conference and the need to keep the government open and operational for the people. Below are excerpts from his interview and a link to the video:
Click here to watch the full interview
On Republicans’ Policy of Shutting Down the Government
“…The Republican Party has shown itself to be a deeply divided, divisive, and dysfunctional party, [and the way forward is to] do what [Speaker] Boehner and Ryan did from time to time – came across the aisle and said ‘Look, we've got to come to an agreement.’ As a matter of fact, they did that on the debt limit, while holding hostage the creditworthiness of the United States, they ultimately made a deal through their Speaker, their elected Speaker with Biden and with the Senate Republicans and made a deal. Then what happened? This group of as one of the Republicans said, ‘lunatics, clowns,’ those are their words, not mine, said, ‘Look, okay, we're going to make a deal, and let's do it.’ 165 Democrats voted with 147 Republicans, and over 300 people made sure that the creditworthiness of the United States was maintained.”
“Unfortunately, starting in 1995, it's been a policy of the Republican Party, led by Gingrich in ‘95 to use shutdowns as a leverage point of getting their way. They’ve shut down the government some 80 days since 1995 when they did a 19-day shutdown. So here we are… they have this very willful crowd that [doesn't] care about the functioning of government, the responsibility to the national security or the responsibility to the domestic policies.”
On the Republican Majority Held Hostage by Extremists
“But [the extreme elements of their Conference] can only do that because the overwhelming majority of the House and House Republicans who are angry with them don't say, okay, let's keep our deals, let's talk to one another … It's like the Senate having 99 people thinking that the military leaders ought to be confirmed and we ought not to undermine, again, the national security, and we ought to be rational, allowing one guy, one guy, to hold up and put our security at risk. It's not [a] responsible way to run a party or a Congress.”
On Speaker McCarthy’s Leadership within the Republican Caucus
“Well they didn't give him his job, and we ought to send that message as a Congress to anybody who's this willful to undermine the overwhelming majority that want to move forward. Now we don't like the defense [appropriations] bill. We think there are a lot of irrational and irrelevant things to our national security in that bill, but that aside, I think what Speaker McCarthy needs to do is frankly what John Boehner and Paul Ryan did … and what and Newt Gingrich by the way did in 1998 – he gave a perfectionist caucus speech, talking to his what would then be the Freedom Caucus People, said look you want your way, but we don't have the votes. And the American public has elected Republicans, Democrats, and they expect us to make the government work, and so he did. He and Clinton made a deal. He kept it. We moved forward. We funded the government; we passed the budget. So, I hope Speaker McCarthy will do that as well. Because it is irresponsible, in my opinion, for the overwhelming majority of Republicans to allow a very small, willful, irresponsible group of people to undermine the confidence not only of the American people but of the international community and the ability of democracy to work in the Congress of the United States and the majority to rule, a majority, in this Congress, Democrat and Republican, want to see us move forward, and make sure the government is funded and serving the American people.”
On History of Extremism in the Republican Party
“… I want to say, and repeat, it's been the policy of the Republican Party in the Congress and the House of Representatives in particular under Newt Gingrich and others not necessarily Speakers, but to use a shutdown as a cudgel or as a blunt instrument to force the Minority or the Majority to do things that it wanted done. That irresponsibility, as I said the shutdown of government has been at least 80 days under Republicans for significant periods of time over government spending, over the Affordable Care Act, and other issues that they were focused on. When the majority of the Congress wanted to make a compromise and move forward. They shouldn't let that happen to the United States Senate, and they shouldn't let it happen here in the House of Representatives, and I’m hopeful that Speaker McCarthy and a majority of the House Republicans, [the] overwhelming majority of House Republicans will act in a responsible way, will come together. We made a deal on the debt limit. We want to see that debt deal kept. That was at funding levels at fiscal year '23, and the Republicans abandoned that, why did they abandon it? Because this small, willful majority shut down the House of Representatives for a week, and in fact shut it down again essentially last week because of their refusal to cooperate.”