House Speaker Mike Johnson is still defending his asinine decision to keep the House in recess for more than a month.
"House Republicans are doing some of the most meaningful work of their careers,” he said during a news conference Monday. “They are in their districts working around the clock with their constituents, helping them not only to negotiate the crisis that's been created by this Democrat shutdown, but all the other matters that they need to attend to. And I am hearing from them individually. They are having some of the most meaningful interactions at a time of great crisis with their constituents that they've ever had, and that's really, really important. So I don't want to pull them away from that work.”
Johnson also claimed that there’s "plenty of time" left in the year for Republicans to do the legislative work that they were elected to do—even though that’s not at all true.
Not a single individual spending bill needed to fund government functions for the entire fiscal year has made it to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature. In fact, the stopgap continuing resolution that Republicans passed in September is set to expire on Nov. 21. So even if the government reopened today, that would give Congress less than a month to pass the longer-term spending bills needed to keep the government open.
Republicans are also not working on legislation to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies to prevent millions of Americans’ health insurance premiums from doubling, which is why the government has shut down in the first place. Though a number of GOP lawmakers are now privately fretting that not taking action will hurt their party in the 2026 midterms.
As for the "meaningful" work that Johnson says Republicans are doing in their districts, it certainly can’t be town hall meetings to hear constituents' concerns.
Johnson told Republicans not to hold town halls, since voters are showing up to yell at them for cutting Medicaid and food stamps and for allowing Trump to wreck the economy with his idiotic tariffs.
In fact, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa—one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for reelection in 2026—said that she'll hold a town hall "when hell freezes over.”
Perhaps the "meaningful" work includes virulently racist Rep. Randy Fine of Florida trying to "denaturalize and deport" New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“I just think we need to take a hard look at how these folks became citizens, and if there is any fraud or any violation of the rules we need to denaturalize and deport,” Fine told the New York Post Saturday.
Then there’s Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who met with the leader of Russia's sovereign wealth fund during his visit to the United States to try to convince Trump and the GOP not to impose sanctions on Russia for targeting innocent civilians in its evil war on Ukraine.
And we can’t forget Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who’s been continuing his investigations into the Biden administration in an attempt to gin up anger among the right. What a "meaningful” use of his time.
Other Republicans are merely using their time off to defend Trump from whatever new scandal is plaguing his administration, whether it be his demolition of the White House, his demonization of the massive “No Kings” protests, or his $230 million shakedown of U.S. taxpayers.
Despite his many excuses, the reason that Johnson doesn't want to bring the House back from recess is because it would force him to swear in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who would be the final signature to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files—which Trump doesn’t want made public.
It would also allow congressional reporters better access to GOP lawmakers to ask questions about the shutdown and Trump's other lawless actions, which could cause bad news cycles for Republicans who are already struggling to deflect blame for their shutdown.
At the end of the day, voters are unlikely to buy Johnson’s spin that it’s more “meaningful” for Republicans to be on vacation than it is for them to be doing their jobs.
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