As the government shutdown began its fourth week, House Speaker Mike Johnson raised a personal concern during a Capitol Hill press conference: He’s exhausted.

According to the Louisiana Republican, people often come up to him and say, “You look so tired on TV.” He quickly added, “I am so tired, because we’re not sleeping a lot. We’re working overtime.”

I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, but it’s far from clear why, exactly, the GOP leader is so fatigued.

The House that Johnson currently leads hasn’t held a floor vote in nearly six weeks. There are no committee hearings. There are no legislative debates. The majority of elected lawmakers in the chamber aren’t even on Capitol Hill, because the House speaker sent them home and refuses to call them back.

It’s tempting to think Johnson might’ve been referring to the government shutdown when referring to “working overtime,” but if so, that doesn’t make sense, either. The House speaker isn’t negotiating with his Democratic colleagues across the aisle, isn’t negotiating with senators, and by his own admission, he isn’t even working on a strategy that might restore government funding.

He isn’t even swearing in Congress’ newest member, who was elected more than a month ago.

What’s more, if we factor in the break House Republicans took over August and part of July, Johnson and his members have worked only a few weeks over the past four months.

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Back-breaking work, it is not.

The Republican leader does make a lot of on-air appearances, and I suppose it can be exhausting to repeat deceptive talking points ad nauseum, but I’m honestly not sure what else Johnson is doing with his day.

Let’s not forget, Donald Trump, who has privately joked about serving as both the president and the House speaker simultaneously, has repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that he and his White House team “don’t need anything more from Congress” anymore, which makes the underlying dynamic that much worse: Johnson’s job has been reduced to little more than keeping the lights on, and he’s failing to clear that low bar.

Perhaps it’s time for a DOGE-like challenge for the House speaker? Maybe at the end of every work week (in this case, I’m using “work” loosely), Johnson can provide the public with a list of five things he actually did with his taxpayer-financed time?

Because at this point, it’s awfully tough to understand why he’s whining about losing sleep and being so “tired.”