Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) got heated on the House floor Wednesday afternoon, tearing into his Republican colleagues and GOP leadership over their approach to funding and policy battles — and grilling them for not being willing to force a shutdown to try to coerce Democrats into giving them policy concessions.
In a fiery, nearly one-hour floor speech, Roy argued Republicans were doing a disservice to those honored with monuments in Washington, D.C., and who died for U.S. freedoms.
“We’re pissing it all away. We’re giving it away. All that they fought for, all of those freedoms, we are giving it away. Why? Because we’re too cowardly to stand up and do our job,” Roy said, shouting on the House floor. “‘Oh, no, a shutdown.’ Are you freaking kidding me? ‘Oh, we can’t have a shutdown heading into Thanksgiving, what will they say or do?’ How about we stand up and fight?”
Roy’s speech came after he and more than a dozen of the hard-line conservative colleagues tanked a procedural vote on a funding bill in part over objections about it not including conservative policies they wanted, and partly in retaliation for the House GOP leadership pushing through a “clean” funding extension Wednesday — with the help of Democrats.
“We went through an entire month of drama about a Speaker, and we just did the same damn thing we’ve been doing,” Roy said. “The people I represent are sick and tired of it.”
Roy suggested in his speech that the House Republican majority had not done anything meaningful.
“One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did,” Roy said. “Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, ‘Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats.’”
He did say that the House has adopted some spending cuts and passed a few bills he is happy with, such as the H.R. 2 “Secure the Border Act” and the annual defense authorization bill.
“But all of that is a tree falling in the forest if we are unwilling to lock arms and fight,” Roy said.
“When we come back from Thanksgiving, I’m hearing lots of promises about what we will do. Let me just lay down a gauntlet here: We better damn well do it,” Roy said.