Frustrated Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Newsmax it's time for Republican House members to "get to work."
Waltz said Thursday on "Wake Up America," just hours before the House was scheduled to meet to hold another vote for speaker, that he was impatient with the 20 Republicans who did not vote to support California Republican Kevin McCarthy's bid.
"It's time to get to work," Waltz said. "At the end of the day, we were elected to hold [President Joe] Biden accountable.
"So my frustration with the holdouts has been that we have been having these negotiations for months. We have moved in a very positive direction, and the goal posts continue to seem to move every time we think we've gotten a deal and we can move forward with Republican agenda and stop the Biden agenda.
"McCarthy is continuing to have talks to figure out what it is, where the new goal line is for some of these members."
Waltz said when negotiations "start slipping into a hostage situation," 20 members shouldn't be able to freeze out the majority of Republican House members."
"We have all negotiated in good faith," Waltz said. "I think this was healthy in many ways. This hasn't been a week that we've lost, this has been months that we've lost. And meanwhile, there are zero — none — zilch in terms of checks and balances on Biden right now."
Waltz said Thursday that more serious negotiations took place Wednesday night.
"My understanding is that last night there was some zeroing in on some budget control measures," he said. "I'm all for that, but at the end of the day, we all want to get government spending under control. I'm hoping that's what get us there so we can move forward."
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Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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