Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) appeared on LiveNOW from FOX to discuss Iran’s attacks on Israel. Leader Scalise highlighted the importance of supporting Israel and noted how President Biden has continued to embolden Iran through weak policies, allowing Iran to fund terrorist attacks against our allies. Leader Scalise assured Americans that House Republicans are united in standing up for Israel’s right to defend themselves and countering Iranian aggression. 
    

On Iran’s attack on Israel:

“Well, you know, this is an escalation unprovoked by Iran. I mean, you've already had the fight by Iran's proxies. And let's make it clear – Hamas, Hezbollah, are all funded by Iran. And so we know that Iran has been involved from the beginning and what happened on October 7th, just not directly. This is the first direct action from Iran to try to attack Israel. Israel has a right to defend themselves. They always have. We've always stood by them in their right to self-defense. And on days like today, we've got to be right there with them. And we surely are on the House Majority side.”

On the importance of supporting Israeli defense:

“This is a partnership we've had with Israel for a long, long time. I've been out to Israel myself, personally seen the Iron Dome and some of the other defense systems that we work with them on putting in place, and they've been highly effective. This was another example: It took the Iron Dome, it took some of the other weapon systems, of course, fighter jets, American and Israeli fighter jets, destroyers, American destroyers, helped shoot down some of these drones and missiles. 

“So this partnership has been in place for a long time, and it needs to continue, especially right now when you see a multi-front war. It's not just Hamas that Israel is fighting. Now you've got Iran directly involved. However, Israel responds to Iran's aggressive actions, we need to support it. The President doesn't need to be putting preconditions like you've seen lately on Israel. It's not Israel who started this. It was Hamas. It was Iran with Hamas. Now it's Iran directly.”

On President Biden's disastrous foreign policy:

“Well, it shows that if you go back to some of the peace accords that President Trump helped put in place, those peace accords are real. There are a lot of countries that want peace in the Middle East. Iran is the outlier. Iran is the country who provokes Israel on every front, who funds terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And so when you saw those Abraham Accords, it was a lot of other countries, not just neighboring Israel, but other Middle Eastern countries who recognize that peace is in the best long-term interest of the entire Middle East. 

“If Palestinians want their own country, the ability is there to have an agreement reached. They've chosen – the Palestinian leadership has chosen – not to want peace. But everybody else in the region does, especially Israel. Countries like Jordan want it as well. And so that's what I think you're seeing right now. Iran is the one, sole outlier in that. And we need to isolate Iran. We ought to put increased sanctions on Iran. President Biden made it easier, for example, for Iran to sell their oil on world markets. That put over $60 billion of additional money in Iran's pockets since Biden became President. That money has been put to use to go and fund terrorist activity for goodness' sake. We need to increase those sanctions, put those sanctions back in place.”

On the House's next steps:

“I'd like to see that happen. Speaker Johnson has been negotiating with the White House for some time now to try to get an agreement on the broad package that would include a number of other things. If you go back to the fall of last year, we passed an Israel aid package. It was paid for by an IRS slush fund – a slush fund where the IRS is trying to more than double the size of the agency. The Senate still hasn't taken that bill up. That bill has been sitting in the Senate for months and months now. Chuck Schumer refuses to take action. 

“There was an attempt to pass a standalone Israel aid package just a few weeks ago, and the White House threatened to veto it. So that killed that bill. So you've seen the White House time and time again recently walk away from Israel. This is a time to stand with our ally, Israel, to show them that we support them. These remarks by Chuck Schumer and others that they want to see a regime change in Israel. They need to be putting pressure on Hamas. It's Hamas who has over 130 hostages, including some Americans. It's Iran who's been funding Hamas. Iran is right in the middle of this, and now Iran has initiated direct attacks on Israel. It's time for the Democrat leadership in Washington to stand up against the real enemy, and that is Iran and their terrorist proxies.”

On the dire consequences of providing financial aid to Iran:

“Yeah, and if anybody wondered just how closely Iran is tied with these terrorist organizations like Hamas, the actions of yesterday make that crystal clear. There is no difference if you are giving money to Iran. And again, President Biden eased sanctions against Iran so that they could do things like sell more of their oil on world markets. That's not only putting tens of billions of dollars in the pockets of Iran, but it's giving Iran direct money to go fund more terrorist activity against countries like Israel and the United States. They hate Israel, and they hate the United States. Why, for goodness' sake, would you want to give them more money? Billions of dollars – 60 billion by most accounts – since Biden took office. That's why we want to see increased sanctions against Iran, punish them for the activities that they've been playing both indirectly and now directly against our ally, Israel.”

On the need for the Democrat Party to change course:

“Well, first of all, what is President Biden doing trying to dictate the terms of Israel's response to a direct attack against their country? Could you imagine if a nation was trying to attack the United States, and you had an ally, a friend of ours, calling saying, ‘Hey, don't respond.’ That would be ludicrous. And by the way, that idea would be thrown in the trash can because we should respond if somebody attacked us, just like Israel has the right to respond to these attacks. You don't want them to go unresponded to because that's the new standard. If it is, well, Iran can just shoot drones, missiles, other weapons at Israel, and they should just turn the other cheek. At some point in time, there's going to be more deaths and casualties. That's not something we want to be a part of. 

“We want to support Israel and their right to self-defense. We surely do on the House Republican side. It's time the Democrat Party start facing this anti-Semitic wing that is starting to take over their party. It's disturbing. It's alarming. I think a lot of people are real angry with the direction of the Democrat Party moving away from Israel. This isn't the time you walk away from your friends. This is the time – when they're being attacked by evil countries, terrorist organizations – you stand by your friends, and you have their back when they defend themselves.”

On Iran’s threats to the United States for aiding Israel:

“Well, first of all, Iran is not an ally of the United States. They're an enemy of our friends. They want to do us harm, too. At the end of the day, you've got to stand with your friends and your friends under attack. If they're a true ally, you stand with your allies, and that's what's happening right now. Israel is under attack. Israel's at war. 

“The ceasefire, as Biden loves to keep talking about, that ceasefire ended on October 7th, when Hamas went into Israel, brutally attacking, murdering innocent civilians in Israel. And so they're at war, and they've made it clear that it's not just the Netanyahu administration, even the opposition leadership in Israel is united with the Netanyahu administration that they want to eviscerate Hamas. If you want to get peace in the Middle East, you have to eviscerate the terrorists who are the only things standing in the way of peace. And that's what's going on right now. We need to support Israel.”

On a stronger America under President Trump:

“I do [agree with this statement]. Just go look at the track record. When Donald Trump was President, you had some aggression in other parts of the world prior to his administration. You look at what's happening in Ukraine. You had, during the Obama years, Russia, Putin moving in on Ukraine back then. Trump comes in, and Trump started providing the lethal aid that they were asking for in Ukraine, and it pushed back Putin. Putin stopped until Biden came in. And then weakness, you're seeing it all over the world. Iran has seen the weakness of Joe Biden's Administration. Putin has surely seen and taken advantage of the weakness. Xi in China is taking advantage of that weakness. 

“Look at what happened in Afghanistan. The withdrawal in Afghanistan was not only an incredibly low point in US military operations -- 13 service members lost their lives -- the total debacle under President Biden, nobody was held accountable. But our enemies saw that failure and saw the weakness that Joe Biden portrays on the world stage, and they're taking advantage of it. Donald Trump does not allow that kind of weakness to be shown. He didn't start any new wars. A lot of people were surprised with that. But he used the strength of America and the moral strength of America to stand up to the bullies around the world.

“There are bad actors out there. If there weren't, nobody would need any defense systems. But there are bad actors who are always ready to take advantage of weakness. President Trump showed strength, and because of that, the world was a safer place. We need to get back to that. We need President Trump back in office.”

On standing with our ally Israel:

“Again, we just need to stand with our friend and our ally, Israel, during these tough, difficult times. They know what they need to do to secure their nation. We don't need to be standing in the way of an ally, a democracy in the Middle East, when you have terrorist organizations, countries like Iran, who sponsor those terrorist organizations that are trying to eviscerate our friend and ally, Israel.”