Rep. Steve Scalise says focusing on a second Trump impeachment only makes matters worse in a country that's already deeply divided.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
My prayers, Madam speaker,
still with Capitol police
officer, Sicknick and Leefn good,
who we lost, as well as all of
the capitol police officers who
risked their lives to keep us
safe.
They are true heroes
and they deserve all of our
applause. Today
I have seen the dark evil of
political violence firsthand
and it needs to stop.
But all of us need to be
unequivocal in calling it out
every single time. We see it
Brian. Absolutely.
The person who shot Steve
Scalise was a Bernie Sanders
supporter.
I dont know anybody, and nor
should they have blamed Bernie
Sanders for that
lets bring in house Minority
WHIP, Steve Scalise
congressman. You wrote an op ed
about that.
You spoke about that yesterday
and you did not vote for
impeachment.
Neither did Kevin Mccarthy,
Kevin Mccarthy did come out
and say the president played a
role in this.
This does not mean the president
is free from fault.
The president bears
responsibility and should
denounce the mob and facts
require immediate action.
He said the president should be
censured for his speech, I
guess and for the crowd
he told to March
you dont. Do you disagree
with Kevin on that?
First of all, good morning,
Steve Good Morning,
what I talked about was that
any rejection of this kind of
violence needs to be
unequivocal.
You cant say: well this
happened, but you have got to say
it is wrong. Anybody who resorts
to violence,
we have called it out by the way.
Last week what happened was an
insurrection.
The people that stormed the
capitol that attacked our
capitol police over fifty capitol
police officers were injured. In
that attack,
I mean, if you are going over
police officers and crawling
through windows, you are not a
guest in a building anymore.
You have literally violated the
law,
many of them have already been
caught and they are being
arrested, as needs to be the
case,
but what we didnt see- and this
is really the point I was making-
was- that we call it out when it
happens on both sides.
When you see all of these
Democrats that are only calling
it out now, they did not call it
out during the summer.
In fact, some of them were
encouraging some of the violence
we saw over the summer,
fanning those flames
you cant, have it both ways.
You have got to be consistenty
calling out violence.
None of us should support that
Brian. Do you differ from Kevin
Mccarthy are on that
supporting censor and the
president is not free from
fault.
Well, there is no censure
before the Congress. All they
brought forward was impeachment,
which I opposed
one of the things we also called
for, and we actually pushed a
vote on this yesterday- was to
get an actual commission to look
into what happened at every
angle.
There has been no investigation
into this.
They literal I did an
impeachment without even a
hearing in committee.
Thats never happened in the
history of our country.
If they really wanted the facts
and they think the facts are on
their side, they would have done
that and held a hearing and
gotten all of this out there,
because we know by the way the
Senate is not even going to take
it up at the earliest until the
first or 20th next week.
So there was time to have
hearings;
they didnt want that
they just want to keep
ratcheting up the rhetoric and
what I have talked about is we
need to be focused on toning
down the rhetoric right now,
because people are afraid when
you talk to the you know.
Folks, all around the country
people are very much on edge.
We need to ratchet the rhetoric
down
Steve right
and the seventy four million Americans who
voted for Donald Trump. What they
saw yesterday broke their heart.
Ultimately, he was impeached for
a second time,
but impeachment congressman
Scalise is all about removing
somebody, an official from
office.
By the time the Senate gets
around to this, the president
will be the former president.
I know they dont really like
the President of the United
States on the democratic side,
but wouldnt couldnt Joe
Biden be a real uniter. If he
said you know what Senate
Donald Trump is out of office,
he is never going to run again.
Lets move on
lets pick up. My agenda
lets get my people confirmed to
the by the Senate, and things
like that lets turn the page.
I think there is a moment for
Joe Biden to do that,
and I think that in and of
itself would cause some more
healing,
but to again just to keep
going after this president. Over
and over again when they know he
is going to be out of office by
the time its even taken up by
the Senate. The country wants to
heal
the country and again there
are millions of people that are
disgusted by what they saw last
week at the capitol, but they
are also angry with four years of a constant barrage against
of a constant barrage against
this president,
all of the russian hoax. What the
FBI did to entrap him, some
agents at the FBI during the
election,
the impeachment homosexual.
It was just every single day-
Nonending Ba run a for four
years, its its weighed on
millions and millions of people
disgusted by last week, but
disgusted by last four years
accumulated all of that has come
together in a situation in our
country. That need need to be
focused on diffusing, not
continuing to add gas reason to
a fire
Ainsley. What was your reaction
when you heard there were going
to be ten Republicans who were
going to vote for impeachment
there? They are.
If you look at the stories
earlier this week, they were
sayings, it was going to be a
tsunami. Literally a number of
publications said it was going
to be a tsunami that was their
word. They used of Republicans
voting for it. I never saw that
it was always going to be a very
small close to nine and twelve members
thats, where we ended up
at the end of the day. You know
you saw a lot of members who
just said this is enough.
I mean lets focus on turning
the page
lets focus on moving on and
thats going to happen next week
on the 20th when Joe Biden is
sworn in as president.
You know, this is only going to
make matters worse in a country.
Thats deeply deeply divided
right now,
Brian no kidding
the Good NEWS is Democrats are
deal with you.
There is only a ten seat
difference between the two.
She does not have a united
caucus.
Hopefully there will be.
Transcript generated on 2021-01-14.