GOP sheriff asks Obama, Bush to end shutdown: 'America needs your help'

A Republican sheriff in Ohio is doing his part to end the government shutdown by writing letters to former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, asking that they help bring the country back together.

“America needs your help,” Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones wrote in a letter sent to both Obama and Bush in a push for a bipartisan solution.

The Butler County Sheriff’s Office published the letter to its Facebook page adding, “Action needs to be taken now.”

“It is my strong opinion that the first step in addressing these issues is for you and former President George W. Bush to come together and form a group that travels in the media circuit to show that we can unify and communicate civilly,” the letter to Obama went on to read. “The country needs the two of you to show the American people that our political parties can get along even if opinions differ.”

Jones didn’t immediately reply to Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment. In a Facebook Live stream on Thursday afternoon, however, he addressed the response he received about the letters, and the questions he’s been asked about his decision to write them. He elaborated on why he thinks the government needs further intervention in order to end the shutdown.

“I support the president of the United States but I believe it should be somebody independent that could get these two groups together and sit down, go in a room somewhere, and get this country moving in the right direction,” Jones said in the live stream. “Stop the hostility, stop the fighting. Somebody is going to die.”

He additionally addressed the reason he chose these two former presidents, in particular, saying that both Obama and Bush are “well respected” and represent both parties.

“I’m just a sheriff in a little place in Ohio trying to make some sense of this and I talked to people on both sides,” he said. “They’re wore out and tired and are worried about their country.”