It is a mistake for Congress to delay taking care of funding until after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, as that could push off his getting started with initiating his agenda, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."
"Right now it doesn't look like they're going to finish this year's funding, and they're going to push that into next year's funding," McCarthy said.
"So what that means is you are putting more burden on President Trump. You're not giving him the honeymoon."
McCarthy said that the "government funding they never got done this year ... they got to get that done by March."
"If they are worried on that, that delays everything else ... if you are bogged down doing funding ... that's taking away President Trump's opportunity to have a honeymoon and put his policies into place," he said.
The former speaker said it is indeed possible to get done Trump's ambitious agenda in a quick manner, "but you are actually handicapping" him by pushing the funding into next year.
"You're giving him more problems instead of letting him look towards the future and getting things moving in a more rapid way," he said.
McCarthy also discussed Trump nominating former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for attorney general, saying, "I blame Matt Gaetz for lying to him about his ethics report. People know that's why he's not capable of even staying in Congress.
"He needed an excuse to resign, because the ethics report would be done in a couple days, and that's unfortunate. But it's a better Congress today of where they're going forward," he said.