Interview With Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ)
Interview
"I think so.
It's why our caucus, 64 of us, half Democrat, half Republican, came together last week and put out a solution, including a continuing resolution to keep the lights on in the government and not hurt people, not hurt our military, not hurt our seniors, not hurt our veterans, put resources aside for Ukraine, which is critical, as we all know, put resources aside for what we need desperately to deal with a lot of our disasters in this country, and have a fiscal and debt and deficit commission, fiscal responsibility, debt and deficit commission.
It's something that actually can get Democrats and Republicans together, which, as you know, right now, in a divided government, where you have got the House control by Republicans and the Senate controlled by Democrats, the only solution will be one where both sides come together.
And I think our plan is reasonable, and it deals with the extremes and says to them, instead of burning the place down, as Speaker McCarthy said of the far right, it actually provides a reasonable, commonsense solution working with people like Brian Fitzpatrick, who want to get things done.
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I think -- well, first of all, I'm focused on protecting the country and the people in the Fifth Congressional District. That's always my goal. And shutting the government down is not a way to actually protect people and look out for our veterans and law enforcement and making sure we have what we need.
And, as you saw, what we did during the debt ceiling deal, where Democrats and Republicans, with a lot of our involvement, came together. And when the far right -- and when they tried to burn the place down, when they threw procedural hurdles in the way and tried to stop progress for the country, we all stepped up, Democrats and Republicans, with the support of our leaderships, to make sure we averted that disaster.
And so our focus is going to be getting this to the floor, Dana, making sure that we can have a bipartisan solution, stop a government shutdown, keep the lights on, so we can keep working together for the country.
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And if that means dealing with any procedural hurdle -- yes, well, any procedural hurdles get thrown in the way that the far right tries, we're going to make sure that we can get a vote done.
And that means getting the support of both sides to the table. And that's all we're focused on, is keeping the lights on this week. We have got seven days left to do it. And you're going to see us working around the clock to make sure we get that done.
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Listen, I have called on him, given the gravity of the charges, to step aside, as I said.
And I think, right now, given how we have got elections coming up, there's a lot of distractions, obviously, giving the senator time to defend himself, I think what's best is that he step aside, and we focus on issues like the one we're talking about today, right, making sure we put our country first and get this done.
And that means putting aside distractions and focusing, all sides, Democrats and Republicans, coming together. That's what we're going to continue to do in these days ahead. And Brian and I will be working with the Problem Solvers Caucus around the clock to do that.
And we can't afford -- this is a decision the speaker's going to have to make. He can bring that reasonable bill to the floor that we have proposed. And I guarantee you're going to get Democrats and Republicans coming together to support it and we can keep the lights on and keep functioning. And I hope that's what happens this week.
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Thanks. Thanks so much."
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