Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) appeared on Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria Bartiromo to talk about successfully ending the Christmas omnibus cycle, House Republicans fight to secure the border, and President Biden’s refusal to take a stand against Iran. Leader Scalise slammed President Biden for continuing to release billions of dollars to Iran and lift sanctions on Iranian oil production after the horrific attack on Israel and amidst attacks on American troops in the Middle East. Additionally, Leader Scalise highlighted how House Republicans’ are exposing the Biden family’s dirty business dealings in their committee investigations.  
   

On breaking the Christmas omnibus cycle:

“If you think about what we broke: The cycle that Speaker Johnson wanted to break was ending these Christmas omnibuses. I think you, so many others, a lot of us have been frustrated when you get to Christmas Eve, you see Congress bringing a 3,000-page bill that nobody read. It's dropped by dark of night, and then it usually passes overwhelmingly – people like me might vote against it, but the bill passes and then nobody knows what's in it. We said we're going to end that practice. 

“And by shifting this from December to January and February, it's a laddered approach as [Speaker Johnson] laid out, but it gets us beyond Christmas, it doesn't have these midnight showdowns during Christmas Eve, where nobody knows what's in a bill. We're actually going to be able to take bills in pieces; we're trying to get all of our appropriations bills moved one at a time, or a few at a time, as opposed to big, large packages. That's the biggest change in Washington – it's been needed to happen for a long time. That's what happened earlier this week.”

On House Republicans’ upcoming fight for increased border security:

“It’s not just the spending, Maria – it's going to be a big fight over border security. You know, and again, this is something that Speaker Mike Johnson, our whole leadership team has talked about. We have an open southern border. This president does not want to confront it. We passed a bill, H.R. 2, through the House that'll fix this border and show you how to secure the border. The President doesn't want to confront that either, the Senate won't take it up, but we're going to have a fight over the border in January. 

“And that's what this sets up, by having this two-step process where you move all of these fights until right after Christmas. You know, the question is, when are you going to have to fight? When is the best time to have this fight? Is it during Thanksgiving and Christmas or is it to go in January, and let's really get the country focused on it? 

"I think the country is fed up with this open southern border, especially when you see what's going on around the world. It's not just countries from South America that are coming over here, people from those countries, it's people from all over the world – from countries that want to do us harm, people on the terrorist watch list. We have to get control of our southern border. And I think people recognize that that battle is coming in January.” 

On the Biden Administration’s failures at the border:

“There are no questions we've been able to get real direct answers from from Homeland Security. It's why you have so much pressure on Secretary Mayorkas, you know, why impeachment is moving through on him, through both the Oversight and Judiciary Committees. 

“It's why there's so many concerns about the failures of this Administration: They don't want to confront these problems. We have had millions of people come across our border illegally – again, they can't even tell you how many people on the terrorist watch list have been detained, let alone the ones that we haven't caught, Maria. And so those are the big problems that we've been frustrated with. 

“This Administration doesn't care. The opioid deaths, the young people that are dying every single day – 150 of our young people are dying every day because the drug cartels are running our southern border – let alone the human trafficking, all the other atrocities. So this is something that we've been wanting to confront through the House. The Senate wants to ignore it, the President wants to ignore it, it's not going to be ignored anymore.”

On the President Biden impeachment inquiry: 

“Well, where it's going next, we’re of course still in the impeachment inquiry, and [Chairman] Comer’s committee has uncovered millions of dollars in shell corporations. You've seen alias accounts in the White House that Joe Biden himself was using. Why was he using these aliases to try to disclose a lot of his dealings? 

“You've seen the White House, by the way, change their tune. Initially, it was, ‘Oh, don't worry, Joe Biden never even talked about business with his son.’ Well, that veil has been lifted because now we know that the President himself was getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the business that his son was doing and other family members. It wasn't just his son – it was other family members that were sending direct checks to Joe Biden. 

“All of these are serious questions that the White House has changed their tune on. The one thing that hasn't changed is that this money has been flowing in and that they've been trying to hide it. And so it's been exposed by [Chairman] Comer; [Chairman] Jordan's committee is going to be working on it as well, as well as Chairman Smith’s committee. So all of these committees are working to get the facts out, and I think it's all about getting the facts out. And the facts aren’t good for the White House. The facts aren’t good for President Biden.”

On Biden releasing billions of dollars to Iran amidst attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East:

“[The Biden Administration’s] response should be that they need to cut off Iran. Why does this Administration, Maria, have a blind eye towards Iran? They had it before the invasion of Israel. And yet, after the invasion of Israel by Hamas – the war where we've seen the atrocities, we've seen what Hamas wants to do, and Israel now wants to eviscerate Hamas, and we need to support Israel in that effort. 

“But who funds Hamas? It's Iran. And yet President Biden – you can go back to the hostage swap [a couple of months ago] – $6 billion this president wants to free up to give to Iran on a hostage swap. We have that money frozen right now. We have a bill that we're bringing to the House floor right after Thanksgiving to make sure that Iran doesn't get that money. The [Iranian President] has made it clear if he gets the 6 billion – it's fungible money, meaning he can spend it on whatever he wants, not just humanitarian purposes. He can spend it funding terrorism, like Hamas, which is what Iran has always done. 

“And then you see this $10 billion in these sanctions. Why for God's sake would this Administration be easing sanctions on Iran? And it goes back to energy because President Biden has such a horrible American energy policy. He shuts down American energy, but he lets Iran sell their oil on world markets; he encourages Russia, Venezuela, other bad actors to send their oil and make billions of dollars. Iran has made almost $80 billion since President Biden has been in office selling their oil on world markets and yet he makes it hard for America to sell oil. 

“This is insanity, Maria. This is why energy policy matters. It's why [we need] a president who actually looks out for America and not our enemies, not emboldens our enemies like Iran. President Biden has had a blind eye towards Iran since he took office and this just shows you what's going on today, even after what's going on in Israel.”