Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Steve Scalise

Interview

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INGRAHAM: House Majority Whip Steve Scalise facing new threats to his life barely more than a year after he was nearly assassinated during that Congressional softball team practice. Police have arrested 63-year-old Carlos Bayon of Grand Island, New York, charging him with menacing the Congressman after leaving violent voicemail messages. Authorities discovered hundreds of rounds of ammo and firearm purchase receipts in Dayon's home along with bomb-building information.

Joining us exclusively now with his reaction is House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Congressman, it's great to see you. I'm so relieved this guy was found, this was prevented. Lord knows what might have happened. We're also awaiting the election results from Ohio 12, which we're going to talk to you about, Congressman Scalise. But your reaction to yet another violent threat against your life.

REP. STEVE SCALISE, R-LA., HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Well, Laura, it's great to be back with you. And clearly, these kinds of disturbing things, there's no place for it in politics. I first want to thank, once again, our United States capitol police. They were very quick to act when my office received this threat. They sent the information on to Capitol police. Capitol police did research, found out that this man has had some real serious concerns. And it was hard to track him down because he was trying to use aliases. But ultimately they found him. And he's in custody, in federal custody. And hopefully he gets a serious sentence, because you can't allow this kind of threats and violence against peoples based on their political views.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, did he have postings on social media about you? Was it a purely political ax to grind? Is he mentally deranged or a combination of both?

SCALISE: I guess we'll find out a lot of that. Clearly he had some strong disagreements with my political views and others. There were others that he threatened as well. And he's going to have to account to that. The Justice Department has him now. But again, my thanks and true appreciation goes out to our law enforcement, the United States Capitol police acted quickly and working with New York authority to make sure that he got into custody.

INGRAHAM: Does what you see with Antifa across the country, taking over this Portland ICE office, black hoods, the beatdowns of conservatives, intimidations of conservatives in public. You saw what happened to Charlie Kirk and his colleague Candace Owens the other morning in Philadelphia. This seems to be ratcheting up. The left blames President Trump. They say, well, he's calling the news fake news and calling them out and that's making people more and more anxious.

SCALISE: No. You look at some of the liberal rhetoric that's coming out from the left. They're encouraging and inciting, in many cases, violence. And it's got to stop. In fact, liberals need to call this out. They need to speak up, just as we're speaking up saying there's no place for it on the Republican or Democrat siding. I think people on the left need to be as vocal about calling out this kind of violence.

INGRAHAM: We were talking about Facebook and Apple moving against more conservative voice beyond Alex Jones but to other conservatives who have seen their voices diminished on these mega-platforms, trillions of dollars of market cap in these companies. Are you concerned that groups like Antifa, which have incited violence at these rallies, they have -- I mean, they continue on YouTube and so forth and Facebook seemingly with impunity, other groups like them.

SCALISE: Yes, it's clearly a double standard. We've pointed some of this out. In fact, when Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that I sit on just a few weeks ago, I brought this up, the bias that we're seeing on Facebook since they put a new algorithm in place to change the way that people get their newsfeeds, and where they're literally starting to filter in, from what we've seen, a left-leaning way and having a bias against conservatives. We've raised it to them, and they have gotten back to me to let me know that this is something they're looking into. But we need to watch it closely, because if they get into a position where it looks like they're trying to become the platform of the left, there are other social media sites people can go to and will go to if it becomes a liberal site. They don't want their site to become a liberal --

INGRAHAM: Yes, a monopoly. We don't want them to have monopoly power.

We're almost out of time. You predict this Ohio 12 is going to go Republican, Congressman, yes or no?

SCALISE: I do. And the numbers that are coming in our strong. President Trump going in, Laura, I think really helped swing this race to the Republican side. It was neck and neck all the way.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Scalise, thank you so much. We'll have results.

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