Republican lawmaker Ken Buck announced last November that he would not seek reelection and would leave Congress at the end of the year. But apparently his GOP colleagues have become so intolerable that he’s decided he can’t waste another second of his life in Washington and is getting out of there just as soon as he can pack up his office.

On Tuesday, Buck said he would leave Congress at the end of next week rather than stick out the remaining time on his term. While the Colorado representative kept things cordial in his official statement, he let it be known how he really feels in interviews with reporters. Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash about dysfunction on Capitol Hill, Buck said, “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress.… This place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.” Specifically referring to his fellow Republicans, Buck said, “We’ve taken impeachment, and we’ve made it a social media issue as opposed to a constitutional concept—this place keeps going downhill, and I don’t need to spend more time here.”

Buck has long criticized the House GOP for attempting to impeach Joe Biden and Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—the latter of whom they just barely impeached last month—saying his colleagues had no legitimate basis for doing so. In a video announcing his retirement in November, he lambasted his colleagues for spreading the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and that January 6 wasn’t a shameful day in this country’s history, saying, “Too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, describing January 6 as an unguided tour of the Capitol, and asserting that the ensuing prosecutions are a weaponization of our justice system.”

Buck’s departure will leave the GOP with a razor-thin majority in the House. Given that he decided to flame Republicans on the way out the door, you might have expected him to give GOP House leader Mike Johnson a heads-up about his plans. And he did! It was just a very, very small heads-up:

Kennedy/Rodgers 2024?

According to The New York Times, it could happen:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has recently approached the NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura about serving as his running mate on an independent presidential ticket, and both have welcomed the overtures, two people familiar with the discussions said. Mr. Kennedy confirmed on Tuesday that the two men were at the top of his list. It is not clear if either has been formally offered the post, however, and Mr. Kennedy is still considering a shortlist of potential candidates, the people familiar with the discussions said.