Former Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who served his last day in the House on Friday, said in a Sunday interview he has no regrets about resigning from his seat before the end of his term.
In a roundtable discussion on ABC News’s “This Week,” Jonathan Karl noted the timing of Buck’s departure from the House – which took place the same day Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a motion threatening to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his post.
“You left Congress as of Friday, just as that was all going down. I guess that didn’t cause you to rethink your decision,” Karl asked.
“Not at all. Not at all,” Buck responded. “No rear-view mirror, happy to, happy to move on.”
“Dysfunctional place,” Buck added, referring to Congress.
Buck slammed his colleagues for having trouble “setting priorities,” saying the GOP conference in the House has spent time focusing on messaging bills rather than addressing serious problems.
“Since this Congress started, there have been efforts to impeach the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, and, in fact, did impeach the secretary of homeland security,” Buck said.
These efforts, Buck suggested, point to “serious problems with setting priorities.”
“We have a very tragic circumstance in Ukraine. We have spiraling debt, all kinds of out-of-control problems, and we focus on messaging bills that get us nowhere,” he said.
Buck has long been among the most conservative lawmakers in Congress, but during his more than nine-year tenure in office, he exhibited an independent streak and a willingness to vote against his party when he disagreed with its official position.
Over the past year, Buck’s term in office has become marked by his criticism of GOP election denialism and his willingness to break from the Republican Party on key votes.
Buck, for example, was one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the top job, joining some other members of the Freedom Caucus.
He was also one of the three GOP lawmakers who opposed impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which torpedoed the first attempt to oust the embattled cabinet official and dealt an embarrassing blow to the Republican conference.
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