WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends to discuss the latest reports of politically motivated attacks and attempts to intimidate political leaders. Whip Scalise called on all Americans to remember that there is no place for violence in American politics and to seek unity. He also reminded everyone of the need to wait for law enforcement to complete their investigation and find out who is responsible for these attacks before assigning blame to different leaders or political parties.
On the need to support law enforcement before assigning blame:
“I’m very fully supportive of law enforcement and confident they will find out who exactly did this. They will figure this out. That person should be brought to justice and it should be swift. For now, it’s a time to make sure we’re calming down the rhetoric, and not pointing fingers at people. My goodness, we should all be focused on encouraging law enforcement and giving them all the tools they need.”
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“This is not the time to be pointing fingers. We all need to calm it down a little. Everybody’s rhetoric should be focused on the idea that we have a great nation where we can disagree with each other, but you don’t make it personal, you don’t resort to attacks. If you’re threatening somebody else, you’ve pretty much lost the argument already. Focus on winning the debate, if you have better ideas, show your ideas. We’re going to have an election in 12 days that will ultimately settle all of our political differences. That is how we settle them in America, at the ballot box, not through violence.”
On Democrats’ quick accusations against President Trump:
“You know these are people that have hated everything the President has stood for. Donald Trump ran as somebody laying out a very specific agenda for this country, to make America great again, and he is doing it. All the things he has done as President have been the things that he promised and it is working.
“We should be celebrating the fact that our economy is doing so well. That we’re finally changing the direction of our country and getting things back on track. If somebody has a better idea, better set of ideas, let them lay that out, but [the Democrats] don’t have an agenda. They just want to make this about personality and being against somebody. That is not what will win this election.
“I’ve been getting all around the country. People first of all like the economic growth that we’re having. They don’t like the tone of politics, when they see people threatening cabinet secretaries, and saying run people out of restaurants based on their political views. That is not who America is. That will not win them the House or Senate, or whatever else they’re trying to accomplish this election cycle. It’s a battle of ideas. I think we have better ideas. What we’re doing working with President Trump, working for the families that have been forgotten for so long. They are glad somebody is finally standing up for them.”
On America’s need to find unity not blame others:
“Who knows what the real motivation is, what [the attacker is] really trying to accomplish. But ultimately, what I am confident of is that they’re going to get caught. When they get caught, we’ll know a lot more. Right now, nobody knows anything about who is behind this. For [anyone] to try to give some kind of commentary about who is responsible for it, when they don’t even know who is responsible for it or trying to assign blame to somebody, that is the kind of politics people really are disgusted by. This is not the time for that. This is a time for unifying. Let’s not change what is great about America. We have confidence in law enforcement. We’re going to figure out who did this and we’ll continue to move forward as the greatest country in the world.”