Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) to discuss House Republican efforts to crack down on fraud and ensure taxpayer dollars reach the Americans they were intended to help—not criminals exploiting the system. Leader Scalise also highlighted House Republican efforts to strengthen national security by funding border security and renewing critical counterterrorism tools.
 
Highlights from Leader Scalise's remarks:

On rooting out fraud and protecting vulnerable Americans: 

“We're bringing a number of additional bills this week to combat fraud, and it's something that we've been seeing, we've been exposing, we've been bringing more tools forward so that we can root out fraud to protect taxpayers. And it's not just taxpayers who suffer, it's a lot of these programs that were intended to help mostly low-income people, kids with disabilities. If you think about some of the Minnesota fraud that's going on in the, the 'learing centers' that you all now know about. That money was intended for students, for children, in some cases children with autism, where that money was stolen by fraudsters. And the government, Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, looked the other way – they knew what was going on, whistleblowers have been telling us that, and they looked the other way – and let the fraud continue. And let the theft of that money continue.

“Again, it's not just billions, tens of billions of dollars stolen from taxpayers. It's money that's not going to people who need it, people with disabilities, senior citizens. Dr. Oz has talked about some of the fraud that he's seen in programs like hospice, where criminal organizations, not just individuals, in some cases foreign countries operating with criminal entities and enterprises are setting up shops to steal tens of billions of dollars, in some cases taking programs away from people, healthcare programs away, and forcing people into things that they don't need, taking away benefits they paid into their whole life. And those dollars are gone, and we're now working to root it out. 

“You would think this would be an initiative that everybody in Congress would work on together. I wish it was. Sadly, you saw the vote last week. We brought a bill forward to root out fraud in childcare centers. So it's not just suspected fraud, but if somebody's actually convicted of stealing money from childcare programs, we bet a bill that says you can't participate anymore if you've already stolen money from taxpayers. And do you know that 98% of Democrats on the House floor last week voted against that bill? 98% of Democrats voted to protect the fraudsters who were stealing money from childcare programs. That's who Democrats are protecting. They're protecting criminals who are stealing money from children. It's that basic. So we're going to continue to bring more bills to protect the taxpayers of this country, to root out the fraud that we're seeing.”

On protecting national security: 

“We're also, of course, bringing a bill later today on reconciliation 2.0 to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. The final piece, as you know, is to fund ICE and Border Protection. This is a piece that Democrats have said they don't want to fund because they want open borders. They have made it crystal clear, the Democrat Party in Washington, that they want to go back to open borders, and we're not going to do that. We need to fully fund this department, especially at a time of heightened security threats.

“We also need to make sure that we renew FISA. One of the reasons that the Speaker's not here right now is he's over at the White House working with the President to finalize this agreement on FISA. You have the bill over in the Senate. We, of course, passed a bill to have a long-term renewal of FISA. The bill is over in the Senate. They're having negotiations right now, and hopefully they get it resolved. We stand ready to move that bill as soon as it's resolved in the Senate. But, you know, hopefully that happens today, tomorrow. But it's important that that program does not go dark on Friday when it expires, because just understand, FISA has been used time and time again to stop terrorist attacks here on our homeland, on American soil, to prevent terrorist attacks. And that's a critical, critical tool that we need to renew.”

On how anti-business policies drive away jobs and investment: 

“I will point out a Truth Social post that [Rep.] Marlin Stutzman put out over the weekend chronicling— a lot of you may be familiar— the Chicago Bears are looking at moving right now to Indiana. Yes, the Chicago Bears playing in Indiana. And you would ask why. He literally lays out in brutal detail how Democrats at all levels in Chicago and the state of Illinois literally ran the Chicago Bears out of Chicago and out of the state of Illinois. And I think it's just important to point out, when you look at what's coming up and what's the difference between the two parties, how one party, literally after 100 years of the Chicago Bears playing football in Chicago, they're going to ultimately end up playing in Indiana. And they didn't want to. They wanted to stay. But now a, you know, multi-billion dollar program with jobs, with tax revenue, all of that is going to leave the state of Illinois because they ran it out of the state through very specific actions that Marlin Stutzman chronicled.”

On raising money for charity with the Congressional Baseball Game: 

“With that, finally, hopefully I see a lot of you out tomorrow night at the baseball game. Republicans will be playing the Democrats in a spirited competition. It is officially now a sellout. 38,000 tickets have been sold. Which is pretty impressive when you think about it, and over $3 million for local charities raised already in the bank. And that's something we're very proud of. It helps a lot of youth programs here in the District of Columbia, and it's something that Republicans and Democrats come together to do. We want to beat the Democrats. We beat them last year, 13 to 2. We want to beat them again. But we also come together to raise money for a really good cause. Hope to see all of you there.”

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