Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a call for congressional Republicans to seriously heed the warnings against the new spending bill, joining the growing number of notable voices speaking out against House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

Gingrich explained that in addition to prohibiting Democrats from helping write the spending bill, House Republicans must be willing to close the government, citing how the government shut down “several times” when he was House speaker in the late 1990s. The House has been unable to balance the budget since 1997, which Gingrich argued would not have been achieved if Republicans did not have “the guts” to refuse to “do dumb things,” taking then-President Bill Clinton and the country by surprise.