GOP Lawmaker Claims He Has ‘Repeatedly’ Asked Mike Johnson To Bring Back The House To ‘Get Us Out Of This Mess’

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) claimed on Fox News on Saturday that he has “repeatedly” asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring the House back into session so lawmakers can work the country out of the government shutdown “mess.”

“No one is winning here when you’re looking at people who are losing their SNAP benefits. When you look at a million-plus federal employees being furloughed or missing paychecks. No one is winning here at all,” Kiley said. “What the American people want…they don’t care who’s to blame or who’s winning; they just want to make sure that they’re able to get access to the benefits that they deserve and that the government is actually open.”

Kiley added, “I don’t think it’s helped in any way, shape, or form that the House of Representatives has been recessed for the last six weeks — have actually canceled six weeks of sessions that we were supposed to be here.”

Kiley said he wished the Senate would pass the “clean CR” passed by the House, but criticized Johnson for the extended House vacation, saying, “the fact that the House isn’t here has made it harder to find some common ground to get us out of this mess.”

Host Jonathan Hunt asked, “So you would ask Speaker Johnson to recall the House?”

“Not only would I — I’ve asked him to do it repeatedly for the last six weeks,” Kiley proclaimed.

He continued:

There’s no justification in my view, and honestly, it’s Republican voters who I think should be most upset about this when they actually delivered a Republican majority and now that’s being wasted — because for six straight weeks, everything that was on the agenda, all of the legislation we were going to mark up, all of the important oversight hearings, have actually been canceled by the Speaker of the House. So that’s a big problem, in addition to the fact that we’re not here to actually play any constructive role in getting the government back open.

Kiley said that he and Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-CA) will soon introduced a bipartisan bill that would temporarily extend the ACA subsidies while introducing reforms to cut costs and “control fraud.”

Watch above via Fox News.