Today, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Republican Leader of the House Administration Committee Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) at today’s leadership press stakeout to criticize President Biden and Vice President Harris for creating the humanitarian and national security crisis at the southern border through their open-door immigration policies and rhetoric. Whip Scalise also called out the Biden White House for ludicrously trying to distance themselves from their own party, whose members have consistently called for police to be defunded for the past year. In addition, Whip Scalise highlighted that Republicans are holding their own hearing today to probe the origins of COVID-19 since Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats are refusing to investigate claims that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab.  

Click here or on the image above to view his remarks.

  On the Biden Administration’s self-made border crisis:   “Here this week, we’re dealing with a number of crises. And yet, on the Floor, we don’t see legislation that Speaker Pelosi is to bringing to address any of them. As [Conference Chair Stefanik] talked about, the border crisis continues to get worse. When Vice President Harris went to Texas, she didn’t go to the border areas where the worst crossings are. I went to McAllen, Texas, with many of my colleagues. She should’ve gone there. She should’ve gone to the Donna Detention Facility. But most importantly, she should be working with our Border Patrol agents, who all will tell you what they need to do to solve this crisis. And frankly, it’s all things that President Biden, himself, did to start creating this crisis at our border. They can solve it today. We call on them to do that.”   On the Biden White House trying to distance themselves from their own party’s support for defunding the police:   “There is a crime crisis in our country as well. And interestingly, over the last year, Democrats have embraced the ‘Defund the Police’ movement, and it’s had detrimental results. It has had devastating results in so many cities across America where Democrat mayors participated in this ‘Defund the Police’ movement. And we’ve seen, unfortunately, police officers leaving the police force in record numbers. And what is the answer from Democrats? To finally reject this radical idea of defunding the police? No. They’re trying to blame Republicans now for the dumpster fire that they created. So, we’re going to continue to call them out on their extremist radical agenda that included defunding the police, and it’s time for Democrats to admit that it was a failure when they embraced the ‘Defund the Police’ movement and start reversing it. Stop trying to blame other people. Actually, own up to what you created that is causing out-of-control crime in our cities across America.”    On holding China accountable:    “For more than a year now, House Republicans have been calling on Speaker Pelosi to hold a hearing on the origins of COVID. It’s perplexing that Speaker Pelosi refuses to have any committee of jurisdiction hold a hearing on the origin of a virus that’s killed over 600,000 Americans and four million worldwide. And so, with the mountains of evidence that continue to grow, that show that it may have started in that lab in Wuhan, House Republicans decided that we’re going to have our own hearing.    “And so, today at noon, we’re having a hearing on the origins of COVID. We have many respected scientists and others who have done research extensively into the origins of COVID, and we’re going to be having that hearing. It’s going to be at noon over at HVC-215. We invite everybody to come over and learn about at least what we have on the table. And then ultimately, continue to press Speaker Pelosi to have subpoena powers to bring in others who refused to come testify.   “Nobody should be trying to cover up for the Chinese Communist Party. Least of which should be Speaker Pelosi. The fact that the Senate passed a bill unanimously that actually will show some of the data and declassify some of the information that’s out there passed unanimously in the Senate. Speaker Pelosi won’t even take that up. So House Republicans are going to continue to press to get the answers, to get to the bottom of how this virus started. It’s about time – long past time – that Democrats join in.”