WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox News Channel’s Mornings with Maria with Maria Bartiromo to discuss President Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly and his actions to restore American strength on the world stage. He also discussed the disgraceful tactics from Democrats to derail and delay the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and applauded the open, transparent, and accommodating process Senate Republicans have followed to ensure a fair hearing. Finally, Scalise discussed Congress’s plans to fund the military and give our troops the largest pay raise in nearly a decade.
On President Trump’s strong foreign policy:
“I think he has done an incredible job on foreign policy and gets little credit for the fact that he is now standing up for the United States. He is standing against the bullies and bad actors like Iran, like Russia. If you look at what he has done in North Korea, talk about 180-degree turnaround from just two years ago. North Korea was moving towards a nuclear weapon and testing ballistic missiles. Now, we’ve got Kim Jong-Un agreeing to denuclearize. As the President said, we’re going to keep pushing the pressure until it actually happens, so the world is a safer place. America is standing up for our friends all around the world and against Iran and other bullies.”
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“In the old axiom of Ronald Reagan, ‘Trust but verify.’ Ultimately, you’ve got to have real inspections. It’s like why President Trump is pulling out of the Iran deal and it is a good move. Because Iran had this self-inspection policy in place. If anybody trusts Iran to play by the rules, gee whiz how naive would that be. Look at what Iran is doing to continue to sponsor Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. We are increasing sanctions working with the President. You see him imposing those sanctions against Iran and telling our friends around the world, ‘Don’t do business with this country, who is not only moving towards a nuclear weapon but is still the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.’”
On the Senate’s Supreme Court nomination proceedings:
“This is still America … Everybody has the presumption of innocence, and the ability to face their accusers. And every opportunity has been presented. I am glad they are going to move forward and have this hearing Thursday, but ultimately have the vote because this needs to be based on facts. If you saw what Judge Kavanaugh said on Monday night, he went on national TV in a really important interview. He was asked and basically, directly said, that he wasn’t even at the party. If anybody, by the way, was there with him, you would have heard from them Tuesday and you didn’t. I think it is important that he ought to have his case weighed to because look, every single girl that he’s ever dated that has come forward has testified that he is man of high integrity and has all of the qualifications to be on the Supreme Court. Who else has been held to that standard? He has met that standard. By the way, his qualifications to be a judge nobody is questioning. Here is a man going to be on the Supreme Court and nobody has questioned his ability to actually interpret the Constitution the way it was written. That is important too. Let’s have all of the facts weighed, including all of the people who have come forward, especially the women who have said Judge Kavanaugh is a man of high integrity.”
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“Chuck Schumer made it clear from beginning he doesn’t want Judge Kavanaugh on bench. He didn’t want whoever President Trump put forward to be on the bench.”
On funding the government:
“The most important vote we are going to have today is to vote to fund our defense. And actually, give full year funding. It has not happened, by the way, in I think nine years, where we’ve had a full year of funding for our men and women in uniform to give them the tools they need and give them a pay raise that they deserve. That is going to be a really important, strong vote that you are going to see on the House floor today to get that bill to the President’s desk and get it signed into law.”
On paying for the US-Mexico border wall:
“That is a separate bill. That is the Homeland Security funding bill. We don’t have an agreement as you know. I want to fund the wall. In our bill in the House, we do fund the wall. The Senate doesn’t. We are not in agreement on that, so we are not voting on that bill today. Ultimately, we are going to have that confrontation, but for now let’s not have our troops be held hostage to that. Democrats tried to do that, by the way, last year, and they were able to, for a few days at least, hold our troops hostage in this. Let’s let our troops get their funding, continue to fight on the wall to secure our border. You continue to see people coming across our border illegally that are committing crimes and that bringing drug trafficking and human trafficking across the border. Let’s get to rule of law like every other country.”