Lawmaker urges House to 'report for duty' as shutdown continues

A lawmaker criticized House Republicans on the federal shutdown, saying the impasse “is not about money” and urging the House of Representatives to return to work.

The speaker, identified in the transcript only as a lawmaker, cited examples of federal spending to argue funding exists for other priorities: “there is enough money to bail out Argentina with $20 billion,” the lawmaker said, adding that “there is enough money to purchase a brand new aircraft for $173 million for the Homeland Security Secretary” and to renovate the White House ballroom. The speaker contrasted those expenditures with what they described as a lack of attention to the shutdown’s domestic impacts.

The lawmaker said House Republicans have been absent from Washington for more than a month and have “worked two weeks out of the last three months,” calling the situation “astonishing” and characterizing the impasse as occurring during “the second longest shutdown in American history.” The speaker concluded that “there is only one way out of this shutdown” and that it “starts with the House of Representatives reporting for duty.”

The transcript contains no record of a formal motion, vote or identification of other speakers or officials responding to these remarks. The statements above are presented as direct quotations and assertions from the lawmaker in the transcript; the article does not independently confirm the spending examples or the precise tally of days of attendance referenced in the remarks.

No next procedural steps or formal actions were recorded in the provided transcript.