Rep. Don Beyer

I've served with four different speakers.

This is the fifth one.

By far the weakest speaker, I think, in American history.

You're absolutely right.

Yeah, I'm here in the Capitol right now, and I'm surrounded by lots and lots of my Democratic friends.

I haven't seen a single Republican here.

The halls are largely empty.

And, you know, what Hakeem Jeffries, Catherine Clark say again and again is we're here, we're willing to negotiate, we want to talk.

There's nobody to talk to.

They've shut down conversation and discussion.

And so, hey, they have the White House, the Senate, and the House.

They think they can do anything they want.

Open the government.

You're in power.

Well, Ben, first, I represent the congressional district that has the most federal employees.

It's also the most politically sophisticated and the best educated.

And so we've gotten hit really, really hard by all the rifts, by the fork in the road.

When they shut down USAID, it seemed like every US-based USAID contractor lived near my home.

And yet we did a quick survey yesterday of the last thousand incoming calls.

Ninety percent have been stick with the shutdown.