House Republicans Agree: Johnson Should Keep Lawmakers Out of Washington

Speaker Mike Johnson says he’s not bringing the House back into session for the second week of the government shutdown.

Some of his Republican colleagues say he’s doing the right thing.

Johnson said Friday that he doesn’t plan to bring the House back until the Senate passes the House-passed continuing resolution, which would temporarily fund the federal government and open it back up. And next week, he’ll keep members out of Washington — announcing it will be a district work period instead of him gaveling the House back in on Tuesday.

Next week’s House committee hearings, including an oversight hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi and a House Homeland Security Committee session with FBI Director Kash Patel, have been cancelled. Bondi was expected to face questions about the Justice Department’s decision to withhold information pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. Tom Cole, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, has been in the Capitol this past week and said he would be here through the weekend. Still, he thinks Johnson made the “right call” by waiting on the Senate.

“Coming back now, you’re just negotiating against yourself,” he said of the House. “What would we be doing?”

Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said he’s stayed to answer leadership’s questions on appropriations bills and how much progress has been made, but there’s not a “huge purpose for the rest of our caucus” to be there as well.

“I have no doubt that our leadership team will respond to what members want to do, but today at least, I would bet that the overwhelming majority would say, ‘We’ll come back and we’ve got something to vote on.’ And right now, we really don’t,” Cole said.

Rep. Mike Haridopolos, a freshman Republican from Florida, said the House’s work is already done. After talking to colleagues across the country, Haridopolos said he is “cautiously optimistic” the House-passed bill will pass the Senate. But the House has no business being in Washington before it does, he said.

“It doesn’t take a professor to figure out from ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ that you pass a bill in the House, you send it over to the Senate,” Haridopolos told reporters Friday. “We’re waiting. We can’t vote on something now. Now, if they come up with a compromise, I’m sure the speaker will be here right away and doing it.”

As for the optics of most House Republicans staying out of Washington — something Democrats have attempted to capitalize on — Haridopolos isn’t concerned, even if many GOP lawmakers have been coy about their whereabouts.

“The game was a couple of weeks ago when we voted,” he said.

However, Democrats won’t be heeding Republican guidance. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Friday that his caucus would be in Washington next week, even if Johnson keeps his members away.

“House Republicans continue to be on vacation, spread out across the country and the world, and this makes no sense,” Jeffries said at a news conference. “It’s Exhibit A of the fact that House Republicans wanted to shut the government down and have no interest in reopening it because they don’t want to provide health care to everyday Americans.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested Friday at a press conference that Johnson called out the House in order to protect the DOJ’s Epstein files, adding that his caucus will not vote for the current Republican continuing resolution.

“We have asked Republican leaders for months to sit down and talk with us,” Schumer said. “They have refused and barrelled us into a shutdown. They thought they could bludgeon us and threaten us and scare us, it ain’t working … Now, rather than working with us to end the pain that Americans are feeling because of a shutdown, Republicans have instead wasted a week, refused to talk and exacerbated pain for America.”

In the meantime, Cole is hoping to make “incremental progress” to restore some government funding. He told reporters outside his office Friday that he wants to get three appropriations bills that are close to being finished — which would fund military construction and veterans affairs, agriculture programs and the legislative branch — passed and out of the shutdown, running on fiscal year 2026 funding instead.

“It’s kind of like rescuing people from a burning ship. If you can get a few off, you get a few off,” Cole said.

And despite high partisan tensions, Cole threw out some praise for two of his Democratic colleagues — the House Appropriations Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and her upper chamber counterpart, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state — who he said he’d be “happy to visit with” at any point.

“They always negotiate in good faith. They’re tough, they’re smart, but if they give you a commitment, they always keep it,” Cole said of Murray and DeLauro.

“I don’t have anything but good things to say about both of them, but they also have pressure from their leadership,” Cole added. “I respect that. I listen to my leadership, I would expect them to listen to theirs.”