Scalise: Republicans Act to Fund DHS and Strengthen Our National Security

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined CNBC's Squawk Box to highlight House Republicans' action-packed legislative week, including steps to fund the Department of Homeland Security, advance national security tools, and move key economic legislation. Leader Scalise criticized Democrats for opposing border security measures at a time of heightened threats.

Click here or the image above to view Leader Scalise's full interview.

Highlights from Leader Scalise's interview:

On Republicans passing critical legislation on the House floor this week:

"It's been a very busy week here in Congress with a lot of really important things to do. And yesterday we really cleared a lot of those big, big items. We moved the FISA renewal bill, which is really important for the United States to be able to stop terrorist attacks that come from abroad. And this goes back to September 11th. It's a tool that we reformed a few years ago dramatically, and we need to renew it so that this tool can still be available to stop terrorist attacks.

"Then, as you mentioned, you got Homeland Security that's been shut down because the Democrats want open borders. They've kept the department shut down for months. So, we moved a budget last night that's going to at least allow us to fund the border security portions of Homeland Security. Then we have a separate bill that we're going to move that will fund everything else from TSA to FEMA to the Coast Guard. So, it's a two-pronged approach that we're going to take because the Democrats shut it down.

"Then we're going to move the Farm Bill. This is so important to all of rural America, farming country in America, anybody who deals with agriculture. The Farm Bill is critically, critically important. Chairman Thompson and the Agriculture Committee put together a really good bill. There's going to be a number of amendments we'll take up first, starting in probably the next two hours, and then we will move through to passing the Farm Bill over to the Senate later today. So all of that happened. And by the way, we had King Charles come and address a joint session of Congress, which was really, really historic and special as well."

On radical Democrats voting for open borders:

"Look, if anything else, it shows just how far left the Democrat Party has moved to where they will unite to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, literally, because they want open borders. And the biggest issue in the 2024 presidential election was border security. President Trump ran on it. He won on that issue, and he's worked with us in Congress to secure the border. And of course, Democrats in Washington have voted every step of the way against those measures, including now shutting down the entire Department of Homeland Security. At the end of the day, this is not good for them. It shows how radical they've become, you know, where basically the Mamdani wing of the party has taken over. So, they're going to have to answer for that in November.

"We've worked with President Trump to make life more affordable, to address many of the problems that we inherited. Also, to stabilize the tax code. No tax on overtime, no tax on tips. Seniors got a really big tax deduction that we put into that Working Families Tax Cut, and every Democrat voted against it because they want you to pay more taxes. They want to keep more power in Washington. That's going to be what the big fight's about in November."

On President Trump's leadership in preventing a nuclear-armed Iran:

"Did anybody want a nuclear-armed Iran? I think if you ask most normal people, they would say absolutely not when they just slaughtered 30,000 of their own people. They were about to get a nuclear weapon, and President Trump stopped that. But that's going to get resolved. President Trump's negotiating that right now...

"We know they had the, basically, the enriched uranium that was ready to go, and with the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Did we really want to wait until they were really developing a bomb that they would be willing to send out... You know, look, I think everybody knows the world is a safer place, America is a safer place without a nuclear-armed Iran."