Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) appeared on Fox Business Network's Mornings with Maria to discuss President Trump prioritizing safety by cracking down on crime in DC after years of failed Democrat leadership. Leader Scalise also outlined Republicans’ agenda to unleash economic growth, root out waste, fraud, and abuse, strengthen social safety net programs through the One Big Beautiful Bill, and work together to pass appropriations through the House and Senate.
  
On President Trump addressing out-of-control DC crime:

“It's been getting more and more out of control. You've got colleagues of mine, members of Congress, who have been accosted, who have been carjacked, who have been beaten. One of my colleagues had one of his interns murdered on the streets of DC just a few weeks ago. This is going on over and over again. I mean, as you saw, they put the National Guard troops in yesterday. They've already made arrests for a lot of violent crimes, including homicide. The DC mayor just let this get out of control. And this is our nation's capital. This is where people come to see their government work, to see the history of our country. And you look at capitals around the world, very few have this out-of-control crime, and President Trump's doing something about it. I'm glad he is.

“It's embarrassing, Maria. Look, local Democrat elected officials, you see this in every major city in America. They don't care about the safety of their own people. President Trump does. He ran on safety and security. It's one of the reasons so many people crossed over and voted for Donald Trump, and he's delivering. Even if their failed local Democrat leaders won't keep them secure, President Trump will. He can obviously do it in the nation's capital. He can't do it in every city in America. They're about to elect a socialist in New York who advocates defunding the police. The public doesn't want that. Democrats don't want that, but they've got a choice to make. Are you going to elect these kind of leaders? But at least Donald Trump is doing something about it to keep people safe, Maria.”

On Republicans prioritizing economic growth:

“Well, Maria, continuing to getting spending under control is critical. It's something that matters to us in Congress, on the Republican side, at least. It surely matters to President Trump. You look at what the One Big Beautiful Bill was focused on. It was getting spending under control and putting a stable tax base in place so we can grow the economy. The only way to balance the federal budget is through a two-pronged approach. It's not through raising taxes. That's a Democrat approach, and not only increase spending and increase inflation. What you need to do is control spending in Washington and grow the economy.And in the meantime, if you look at the One Big Beautiful Bill, the biggest focus, the biggest area of growth in deficit spending, Maria, is what's called autopilot spending, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, those mandatory parts of spending. That's what we focused on, putting work requirements in Medicaid, putting work requirements in SNAP, the food stamp program. That's going to actually get people who didn't belong on those programs in the first place off so that they can get back under control and get a normalized growth rate. That helps get you back to balanced budgets.

“Yeah, [the debt ceiling was raised] roughly two years. And what that does is save, by the way, hundreds of billions of dollars, because unfortunately, these days, Democrats in the Senate, especially Chuck Schumer, if they're empowered to be able to control the negotiations on something like debt ceiling, they're going to ask a king's ransom and add hundreds of billions of spending in exchange for avoiding a debt crisis. President Trump didn't want that. Neither did we. That's why we put it in the One Big Beautiful Bill to take that negotiation off the table so we could focus on controlling spending, getting spending under control. We also did the rescissions bill. Remember that? Getting rid of the USAID, public broadcasting. Look, if you want to go watch public broadcasting, you can pay for it. People that want to watch your show, and a lot of people do, they pay good advertising dollars because it's a popular show. If nobody's watching your program, there are too many options today in cable programming to have taxpayers funding to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. We got rid of that wasteful spending, and it's just the beginning.”

On funding the government:

“Well, we're doing our work so that it doesn't happen, but obviously, it takes two to tango. The House has passed over 60% of all the government funding bills, and the Appropriations Committee, Tom Cole, his members are doing a great job in getting all of those bills out of committee. We finally have a Senate in John Thune who's willing to move appropriations bills. They've started to move a few. There is a negotiation going on, Maria, even during the August recess, where members are talking to each other, Republican, Democrat, House, Senate, to try to get some kind of agreement before the September 30th deadline. Will we get there? I don't know. That's going to be up to Democrats to see if Chuck Schumer and his colleagues want a government shutdown. We don't. That's why we are moving all of these appropriations bills. When we come back in September, we'll see if there's a real negotiation to be had.”

On the Socialist leadership of the Democrat party:

“Yeah, let's be honest. Safety is not number two with Omar [Fateh]. It's last. When you say you want some community organizer to answer the phone instead of a cop, when you call 911 because somebody's breaking into your house, you're saying you don't care about the safety of your own people that you want to represent. That's going to be a choice the people there have to make. But that's the direction of the Democrat Party. He, Mamdani, they are the new face of the Democrat Party. They have to admit it. The press in DC says there is no leader in the Democrat Party. There is. It's socialist like Mamdani and this guy, the Bernie Sanders, AOC wing of the party has taken it over. You want to find a blue dog in DC, you're better off finding a spotted owl. They don't exist because the Socialists have taken over their party. People across America, I don't think they recognize, if you're in middle America, you can't imagine, how could Socialism truly take over? It must be just some meme. It's not. It's where the Democrat Party is. We have to deal with it in DC because that's the core of their party there. It's what's taking over their big cities. That's why they're a failure. 

“Yeah, Bernie started it, and then others picked up on it, and now it's taken off like a cancer. They've got to confront it. They won't. We're going to at least focus on getting the country on track, Maria, for working families.”

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