Frank said he was taken aback when Republicans didn’t use all of their debate time. Frank: Why losing GOP is mellow

As former Rep. Barney Frank watched the end of the government shutdown unfold in Congress late Wednesday night, he thought to himself, why do Republicans seem so calm after losing so badly?

His answer: weed.


“One of the causes that I’ve been pushing is to legalize the smoking of marijuana by adults instead of locking them up. And apparently that may be more widespread among the Republican House members than I had thought, because that’s the only explanation I can think [of] for this particular extreme mellowness that they are [showing],” the former Massachusetts congressman said on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.”

Frank said he was taken aback by the fact that Republicans didn’t use all of their debate time on the House floor Wednesday night.

“I was struck by one side of the Republicans’ total unhappiness was on an issue like this, they didn’t use the debate time,” Frank said. “Both sides gave it up. Ordinarily, people would be beating their breasts.”

The longtime House member also couldn’t resist one last dig at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whom many blame as the architect of the defund Obamacare strategy that led to the 16-day shutdown.

“There’s one thing that the Republicans apparently didn’t learn in school, and in particularly that important course, driver’s education. If you’re going to set out driving on a very difficult unknown road, don’t put your car in Cruz control,” Frank said.