Scalise Touts GOP Wins for Small Businesses, Farmers, and Working Families

NEW ORLEANS, La.-Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) appeared on Fox Business Network's Mornings with Maria to discuss Republicans' aggressive legislative push last week, including House passage of the Farm Bill for the first time since 2018 and advancing DHS funding, while highlighting President Trump's efforts to strengthen security at home and abroad. Additionally, during Small Business Week, Leader Scalise highlighted GOP provisions aimed at supporting small businesses and working families.

Highlights from Leader Scalise's interview:

On the Trump Administration preventing a nuclear-armed Iran:

"You know, what you've seen President Trump and Secretary Hegseth say is that we're going to make sure that they open up the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic. Now, for Iranian vessels, it's going to be another story. And it's clearly having a devastating impact on Iran's economy, which, by the way, also affects Iran's friends around the world. This is not a good country you want to be friends with. China needs to take note of that. But for everybody else - and you look at all the other neighbors in the Middle East, they're all siding with the United States in this conflict because they don't want a nuclear-armed Iran and they don't want these radicals controlling the Strait of Hormuz and the flow of oil around the world."

On wins for small businesses in the Working Families Tax Cuts:

"Secretary Loeffler has been doing a great job of representing the Trump Administration on behalf of small businesses, which are the lifeblood of our economy. You know, every big business pretty much started off as a small business and grew. And so you want to continue to have that lifeblood. And what we did when we were building the Working Families Tax Cuts is we said, how can we most benefit small businesses and working families? You know, you look at no tax on overtime, it's been a tremendous boom to blue-collar workers. These are people who maybe are living paycheck to paycheck and just realized when they filed their taxes a few weeks ago, they got thousands of dollars back because of that great benefit. Small businesses, a lot of positive benefits to help small businesses grow, hire more workers, expand in their business. Bonus depreciation, immediate expensing, those are things that let small businesses grow in America. And so you're seeing a lot of business growth in this country, which is a good thing. And President Trump really focused on that.

"You're going to see continued job growth this year. It's going to continue to help the economy grow. It's going to put more money in the pockets of working families. That's really what matters to families. You know, they're going to see their gas prices come down when Iran gets resolved, and having the Strait of Hormuz open back up again is going to help that. But ultimately, seeing interest rates come down, seeing inflation come down, that's what the Working Families Tax Cut was designed to do. And small businesses are benefiting the most, as well as working families."

On the House sending the Senate a strong Farm Bill:

"You know, this was an incredibly important piece of legislation to pass, and with a narrow majority - Look, over and over again, the far left loves trying to count out the Republicans in Congress and yet we delivered for Americans, farmers. I mean, you think about farmers. That is Middle America, the people that put food on our tables. And it's, by the way, it's a large, large, over 40% of America's economy is tied to agriculture. So getting another 5-year farm bill has been a top priority. Chairman G.T. Thompson and the Agriculture Committee put months of work into building this bill, and it was a bipartisan vote. We got Democrats, along with almost every Republican, to pass this bill out of the House last week. It was a major achievement, and it gives the Senate a really good template now. They don't have to reinvent the wheel. They've got a really strong bill to work with that was built by listening to America, listening to farmers all across this country, the people that grow our food and that provide all the things that basically make our economy work so well in America. So I hope the Senate takes it up and moves it because it's an important bill to our country."

On denouncing violent rhetoric:

"It's disgusting. And frankly, you know, when you look at now the third, as you mentioned, assassination attempt on President Trump, we've seen a rise in political violence from the left. It's not happening on both sides. Everybody knows that. And it's language like that. It's rhetoric like that inciting just the far left base of the party, some of these unhinged people. And it only takes one. In the case of this California man who just decided, I'm going to take a train from California and try to kill the president and everybody else in that room. And that was his intention. I was there. It was chaos. But luckily he was not successful because of the brave men and women in the Secret Service who stopped him. But, you know, if they didn't stop him, his intention was to kill everybody because he's seeing this kind of insightful language from the left. They need to stop saying these kind of things and recognize it's having an impact and trying to incite people to go kill other Americans. I mean, do you have any humanity and care for your fellow human being? I mean, let's go fight and win elections at the ballot box. That's how America has always done it. You don't resort to political violence. It's never acceptable."