GOPer urges fellow Republicans to put Biden impeachment aside to keep government open

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), a conservative stalwart and longtime member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus who has been increasingly at odds with many of his colleagues, warned on CNN that the House GOP needs to put impeachment of President Joe Biden on hold — at least for the time being — and focus on keeping the government open.

"Let's talk about the impeachment inquiry and the shutdown that you mentioned," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "When you look at it juxtaposed with the government shutdown, does it concern you about House Republicans' priorities here?"

"It concerns me about House Republicans' priorities," said Buck. "It also concerns me about the public perception of our party being able to run the U.S. House. I think that there is nothing worse than a shutdown. I think this is an embarrassment. We knew that September 30th was coming for a long time. We should have been talking in July about a continuing resolution. It doesn't have to be done on the eve of a shutdown."

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"In terms of the optics, if there is a shutdown, should the impeachment inquiry pause while military isn't paid?" said Cooper. "It's been said that impeachment inquiry will be deemed essential work."

"I don't know," replied Buck. "I am keeping about half of my staff as essential and the other half will get paid when the shutdown's over. I don't know exactly how they're going to parse out who is essential and who is not. But I do think that it should go on the back-burner until we finish with the continuing resolution and start funding the government."

Buck also turned his particular irritation on far-right Republicans who are demanding that defense funding for Ukraine cease.

"I think it is — when they start adding Ukraine in as one of their demands, that we shouldn't fund Ukraine anymore, I'm just not in with that," said Buck. "I think we've got to make sure that Putin does not win this war. And I think we have to make sure that we support Ukraine to the point that we can and be realistic about it. But I really think that there they're conflating some issues that don't need to be conflated at this point."

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