WASHINGTON, D.C.— House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox News Channels’ Fox and Friends this morning to discuss his efforts to whip support for the Goodlatte-McCaul immigration reform bill, which he is cosponsoring. He also discussed the enforcement and response failures in Parkland, and emphasized the importance of protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves in these circumstances.
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On the Goodlatte-McCaul Immigration Reform Bill:
“I’m a cosponsor of the Goodlatte-McCaul bill, in fact I’ve been working with the Chairman, to try to make sure we can get the votes. I whipped the bill just a week and a half ago, so we know where we need to go to get a lot of the votes we don’t have to pass the bill. We’re working on that hard. Obviously, a lot of other things going on, but that is one of the things front and center—secure the border, end chain migration, end visa lottery and then address and finally try to fix the DACA problem.”
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“The senate was going in a little bit different direction. But as we saw, getting 60 votes in the Senate on anything is difficult. The Senate is going to have to deal with their own issues. It would be really good if we could get something passed out of the House first. I think Goodlatte-McCaul is the answer.”
On Congressional Action after the Parkland School Shooting:
“Well, I think what changes is that we’ve seen so many breakdowns in different levels of government. Federal, of course, with the FBI completely dropping the ball months ago when they had this kid handed to them on a silver platter. At the local level, we’re finding out more and more disturbing information about the local sheriff’s deputies. At least one, maybe more than one, were on site armed to protect those kids, who stayed outside instead of going in and confronting the shooter. In my case, the fact that you had two armed police officers there, who confronted the shooter immediately, saved not only my life but all the other Members of Congress at that ball field. Why did those breakdowns occur? And then let’s focus more on addressing these problems in mental health that we’ve started to deal with in Congress. Let’s close loop holes, let’s figure out what went wrong with government before people start talking about taking away rights from law-abiding citizens.
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“Again, I think the most important thing, clearly you pray for the victims, and you find out what went wrong. Why did so many breakdowns occur? Look, Brian, all these breakdowns in government show you why so many people, millions of people across the country, want to have the right to defend themselves. Passing laws that take away rights of law-abiding gun owners that is something that concerns a lot of us because we see failures that shouldn’t have happened, that should have stopped this from happening. Let’s focus on making sure that people that are law-abiding citizens are able to maintain their rights.”