A group of Blue Dog Democrats is saying it's time for everyone to return to Washington.

Citing the credit downgrade and current economy, House Democrats Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Michael Michaud of Maine, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina and Henry Cuellar of Texas are calling for Congress to cut the August vacation short and return to Washington.

"I know there are disagreements, but how are we going to start addressing the issues if we don't get back?" asked Rep. Cuellar during a Saturday interview with Fox News. "In 30 days we're not going to be having disagreements?"

The four democrats sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi arguing, "S&P believes our political system is so dysfunctional that it will be unwilling to find a fiscal solution. The American people wonder why, in the midst of this crisis, we are on an extended break."

Cuellar says he's hearing that sentiment straight from his constituents back home, telling Fox News, "I am meeting with a group of people here in Laredo, Texas right now and people are frustrated that we cannot sit down and work things out."

The 4th-term Democrat says while he knows his colleagues look forward to vacation, an exception should be made. (read more)

On a cold night in January 2008, then-presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told a cheering crowd, "I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to love a state as much as I love my home state of Arkansas, but tonight I love Iowa a whole lot."

Months before winning the Iowa Caucus, the former Arkansas governor took second place in the 2007 Ames Straw Poll, just after former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Looking back on that night, former Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman has a warning for GOP 2012 contenders who dismiss the Hawkeye State:

"It's a huge mistake to skip the early primary states, especially Iowa," Saltsman said during a Sunday interview with Fox News.

Saltsman went on to say that first-time presidential candidates "have a lot to gain" in Iowa.

But former New Mexico governor and current primary contender Gary Johnson disagrees. His campaign released a statement this week, saying that Johnson will be in New Hampshire instead of spending more time in Iowa.

Saltsman says if his candidate had taken that route, the campaign would have gone much differently.

"As you saw four years ago, it gave a guy that nobody really knew, Mike Huckabee, a chance to get in the national arena and do pretty well."

It's a viral video on the debt debate that's caught the attention of D.C. and beyond - and it almost never happened.

Remy Munasifi, star of the "Raise the Debt Ceiling" rap video, says he and fellow collaborator Meredith Bragg thought lawmakers would reach an agreement before they could finish the video.

"We didn't think we'd have enough time. I kept saying, ‘Aw, they're going to solve it tomorrow,'" said Munasifi during a Sunday interview with Fox News. "Days became weeks, and so finally last week we were like ‘let's just do it.'"

Turns out, the extended bickering on Capitol Hill gave them more than enough time to complete the rap.

"Folks are paying attention to the debate and this puts hopefully an entertaining spin on it," Munasifi told Fox News.

Clad in sunglasses, a shiny jumpsuit and fake bling, Munasifi drops verses like, "You're looking for some cash it's about to get heavy / I got some big ol' piles of money and guess what -- they shovel ready."

When asked about the jumpsuit, Munasifi said he bought it online.

"It is 100% polyester and if you are walking around in D.C. at the end of July, I highly recommend it," he joked. (read more)

A House Democrat who voted against increasing the borrowing limit just two months ago is now changing his tune, and saying he'd consider a short-term deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar says while he would "prefer not" to have a short-term extension, he would consider one to prevent a default.

"When you have a default, the ironic thing is the interest rates are going to go up and we are going to be paying more of a deficit," said Cuellar during a Saturday interview with Fox News. "If you go to bank and your credit rate is not good, bankers are going to charge you more interest. You're going to be paying more later on. That's exactly what is going to happen to the federal government."

Back in May, Cuellar was one of 82 Democrats to vote "no" on the proposal to increase the statutory debt limit to $16.7 trillion. The motion failed by a vote of 318 to 97.

When asked if he had taken heat from fellow Democrats for his debt ceiling vote, Cuellar responded, "No, I think everybody understands that we are in a very difficult situation."

Cuellar says he saw the contention coming. "You know back when we were facing the CR [Continuing Resolution] some months ago, people said ‘this is a tough vote' and I said, ‘wait till we get to the debt limit.'"

The Texas Democrat says House Speaker John Boehner should remember the compromise that took place during the fight over the Continuing Resolution. (read more)

Most of the Republican presidential hopefuls have spent more time criticizing President Obama than attacking each other.

That all changed when Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., threw his hat into the ring, and he wasted no time zeroing in on fellow 2012 GOP contender, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"Unemployment rising, people struggling in the Obama-Romney economy," McCotter tweeted Friday.

The congressman expanded on that critique during a Saturday interview with Fox News. "We have Obama as the champion of big government, we see Romney as champion of bail out banks in Wall Street bailout. They are less rivals than they are running mates," he said.

McCotter has good reason to focus on Romney. The former Massachusetts governor leads the latest Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll with 18 percent. Plus, as the son of former Michigan Gov. George Romney, he has strong ties to McCotter's home state.

Romney's support of the 2008 Wall Street bailout is at the heart of McCotter's attack.

"Unfortunately, what we're seeing out of Washington today and out of many in the Wall Street community is they're thinking inside an economic coffin for the rest of America," McCotter said (read more)

A senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee says it's time to stop playing political games when it comes to raising the debt limit.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., told Fox News riders onto the debt bill could have unintended consequences.

"I've been through this and seen what happens when you have to pay 2 percent or 3 percent more to borrow money. They are playing with dynamite by not raising the debt ceiling and I think it should have been raised clean," McDermott said during an interview with "America's News HQ" Sunday.

McDermott was one of 97 House Democrats who voted to increase the statutory debt limit by $2.406 trillion. The measure failed during a vote on May 31.

The congressman said resolving the debt ceiling issue "is crucial for our place in the world economic system," adding that he's open to all ideas to balance the budget.

One option the Washington Democrat is proposing is letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire. "The deficit would go down by $533 billion," he said. "So, there are a lot of ways we can get there."

McDermott said bipartisan cooperation is key to closing the budget gap. "You have to sit down and talk about the details," he said. "I'm willing to do that. I was here in '94 in the Congress when we raised taxes and made cuts, and we balanced the budget under Bill Clinton."

"It can't be one way: your way or the highway."

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay now has kind words for his onetime colleague, Newt Gingrich.

"He's proven that he can lead," DeLay said in an interview with "America's News HQ" Sunday. "He won the election in 1995, then leading that election he became Speaker of the House."

The comments were a seismic shift from DeLay's 2007 assessment of Gingrich, when he described his fellow Republican as an "ineffective Speaker" in his memoir, "No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight."

"[Gingrich] knew nothing about running meetings and nothing about driving an agenda" DeLay writes in the memoir. "Nearly every other day he had a new agenda, a new direction he wanted us to take. It was impossible to follow him."

Now DeLay tells Fox News that the former House Speaker is part of an impressive field of contenders for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

"All of our candidates--I mean we've got Newt Gingrich, we've got a former senator who was a leader in the Senate, we've got five to six governors--they've all proven their mettle with their records," said DeLay.

Still, the former Majority Leader says it's too early to pick a Republican front-runner just yet, telling Fox News "Who knows? We are so early in this process, let's see what happens."

Harrison Schmitt, a former U.S. Senator from New Mexico and Apollo Astronaut, says although "NASA's had a good 50-year run," it's now time for a change.

Schmitt is proposing to start from scratch, by taking NASA's deep space exploration efforts and putting them in a new agency. That agency, which Schmitt has dubbed the National Space Exploration Agency, or NSEA, would focus on missions to the moon and beyond.

Schmitt was a lunar module pilot for Apollo 17, the last Apollo mission to land men on the moon. During a Saturday interview with Fox News, Schmitt said he'd like to see more of the "youth and vigor" that NASA had during the Apollo missions.

"After 50 years NASA has gotten old, it has become more bureaucratic," said Schmitt. "It's time I think to take the critical national security functions and geopolitical functions out of NASA and put them in a new agency."

Schmitt added that in its current state, "NASA does not have the focus it needs to contribute to the exceptionalism of America and to the geopolitical strength that we must have in the world."

They're both Republicans, they both represent districts in Colorado and they both serve on the House Armed Services Committee. But on the issue of seeing photos taken after Usama bin Laden's death, Congressmen Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn couldn't be more different.

Members of the Senate and House Intelligence and Armed Services committees were given an opportunity to see the pictures at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va.

Congressman Lamborn was one of the lawmakers who chose to view the images. "It brought me some closure," he said during a Sunday interview with Fox News. "It was more emotional than I thought it would be."

Congressman Coffman, a Marine Corps combat veteran, said he had no interest in seeing the gory images, adding "I've been around war all my life."

Coffman went on to say that traveling to the CIA Headquarters "would not have been a good use of my time."

Lamborn argues that select members of Congress shouldn't be the only ones who see the photos, telling Fox News, "I think for Americans who were traumatized, I think there is some closure involved. Also, it shows that America is victorious."

Lamborn added he thought the photos would send a powerful message to "the bad guys out there."

That message is what worries Coffman, who told Fox News the pictures could be used by America's enemies. (read more)

President Obama is reiterating his "commitment to comprehensive immigration reform," and hopes to overhaul the system during his time in office.

But Congressman Dan Lungren, a California Republican and member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, says he sees red flags in that statement.

"The word ‘comprehensive' has become a code word for amnesty," said Lungren during a Saturday interview on Fox News.

Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen joined the debate with his own twist on the dictionary, telling Fox News, "amnesty is code for not getting things done."

Cohen says one example of inaction is the DREAM Act, formally known as the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act. The DREAM Act provides a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants through college attendance or military service. The measure passed in the House but failed in the Senate on a procedural vote in the 111th Congress.

Cohen blames Senate Republicans, saying they "killed the DREAM Act." (read more)