House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Sunday that Republicans are “in the middle of a civil war” as both parties wrestle for an agreement to avert a government shutdown when funding expires at the end of the month.

In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” Jeffries said: “Let’s be clear: House Republicans are in the middle of a civil war.

“The House Republican civil war is hurting hard-working American taxpayers and limiting our ability to be able to solve problems on their behalf. It’s unfortunate, but as House Democrats, we’re going to continue to try to find common ground with the other side of the aisle to work with Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans and President Biden,” he said.

Host Jonathan Karl asked Jeffries to weigh in on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision Tuesday to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden after he had said he wouldn’t do so without a full vote of the chamber.

The White House will cooperate with the impeachment inquiry “because there was nothing to hide,” Jeffries said, contending that House Republicans’ investigations into the Biden family haven’t produced evidence suggesting Biden “engaged in impeachable offenses.”

“There are no facts on the record to suggest that President Biden broke the law in any way, shape or form. This is an illegitimate impeachment inquiry,” he said. “It’s a product of the House Republican civil war.”

He added: “Why in the world in the middle of all the issues that we are trying to tackle, all of the problems that we are trying to solve on behalf of the American people? What House Republicans inject this illegitimate impeachment inquiry in the middle of us trying to do the business of the American people? It’s quite unfortunate, it’s wrong, it’s distracting, and it should end now.”

Later on “This Week,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., pushed back against Jeffries’ using the term “civil war” to characterize tensions within the GOP.

“Using the word ‘civil,’ the phrase ‘civil war,’ over and over again in an interview — if that were a Republican, there would be outrage on the left,” she said. “So I find it a little bit hypocritical that that is the divisive language that he used in his interview.”