Despite a continuous troop presence in the nation’s capital city and a heightened level of rhetoric that has not decreased since the 2020 election or President Joe Biden’s inauguration, U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Mobile) indicated he was optimistic a level of calm could come in time.
Carl, who is one month into his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, said now that committee assignments had been given, the tone could shift as things get busy on Capitol Hill.
During an appearance on Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5 on Monday, Carl explained the circumstances of serving in the minority in the House.
“[I]t has been quite hectic in D.C.,” he said. “We got our committee assignments last week. I got on the Armed Services Committee, which will help me greatly with working with obviously Austal and Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula. That justifies 7,000 jobs in my district, 7,000 families. And you know, with these committees, we’re getting on — we’ll get on some subcommittees. We’ll find that out this week, and hopefully, things will settle down when we get everybody busy. That will distract us from just being so petty, which I’m telling you — one thing I’ve learned about D.C. is they’ll make a mountain out of a molehill. I mean, it doesn’t matter if it is 100% true or not. They’ll run with it. It’s crazy.”
The Mobile Republican also indicated his intentions of trying to work across the aisle with Democrats.
“Until we get some different leadership up there, we’re kind of stuck,” Carl added. “You know, we’ve got to play the cards that are dealt to us. We’ll make it work. Again, I have reiterated we’ve made some friends — I’ve tried to make some personal friends with some of these Democrats. You know, we need to start working together and work as Americans instead of working against one another just because of our party or our labels that are stuck on us. Hopefully, we’ll start settling down with these committees. Hopefully, we can start communicating one on one with our friends across the aisle and find out what we have in common. And I think we’ll be surprised that we have a lot more in common than we don’t have in common. It’s time to move on. It truly is. It has just been one drama after the other. And, of course, this week is going to be the COVID situation. Then, of course, we have the budget coming up and our first glimpse of it probably next week, maybe the week after that. But lots of big things coming up. I hope we can settle down and start dealing with it.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
