Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Reps. Gaetz, Scalise on Florida election chaos
Interview
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HANNITY: All right. Joining us now is Congressman Matt Gaetz along with the author of the brand-new game -- brand new book, I've read this book cover to cover, "Back in the Game: One Gunman, Countless Heroes, and the Fight for My Life," Republican House majority whip Steve Scalise is with us.
Congrats on the book. I know you are still recovering. I know it's been very hard and we do know how close you came not to surviving that day. We are so glad you're here.
Let's go to the Florida recount issue first. Matt, you represent the Panhandle. Twenty-seven days before this election, entire neighborhoods were wiped out. But on time, following Florida law, they got the job done. But as usual, Broward and Palm Beach, you went down on behalf of your constituents, I assume, because their votes shouldn't be, well, counterbalanced by something that's corrupt. Tell us what happened.
GAETZ: Sean, you're absolutely right. I will be damned if the people in south Florida are going to dilute the legal votes of my constituents are who have a right to an honest, fair representative republic.
In the video you just showed they were armed police, they were stopping me just from trying to get an accurate record of what was going in and out of the supervisor of elections office in the middle of the night. I don't know if it was furniture, I don't know if it was election equipment, ballots.
What I do know is that there is no chain of custody for 80,000 ballots. Those ballots reach five pages long, so you're looking at over 404,000 pages of information--
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: But why did they--
GAETZ: I don't know.
HANNITY: You're outside, and not inside.
GAETZ: I'm still waiting to hear from the supervisor! No. And look, I mean, what are we afraid of? We had the Palm Beach supervisor of elections tell the media that if they didn't turn their cameras off, she was going to have them arrested. That's the type of thing you would expect in a communist or fascist dictatorship.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: What's the name, Jim Acosta think they respond differently. And even if they weren't being rude.
GAETZ: Listen, if I was Jim Acosta, this would be viewed as a human rights violation.
HANNITY: yes.
GAETZ: But because I'm a congressman trying to represent my constituents, I was told that I couldn't get an accurate record of what was going on and now, no chain of custody for ballots.
HANNITY: Unbelievable. That means we -- how could you have any faith in it coming out days after the election, violating law after law? Congressman Scalise, you just heard Nita Lowey. We've been hearing from Nadler. We've been hearing from Schiff. We've been hearing from Maxine Waters.
We've identified -- Axios identified 85, at least 100 investigations. How do you stop what is obviously the Pelosi-destroy Trump at all costs subpoena brigade?
REP. STEVE SCALISE, R-LA.: well, Sean, first of all, I think that they go down this road at their own peril. President Trump just followed through on all the things he promised he would do. It's frankly it's why the left doesn't like him so much. But it's also why in every place I would go to, every swing district I would go to, you would see thousands of people showing up for Trump rallies.
President Trump would go to a place and there would not only be a packed house of 15,000 person arena, but they would be another 15,000 people waiting outside because they love what he's done to get this country and this economy back on track.
And you look at the Senate seat that he was able to flip, the Democrat seats that are now Republican Senate seats because of President Trump's leadership.
HANNITY: Yes. Well, if--
(CROSSTALK)
SCALISE: And so, if they want to have this agenda, Sean, where they just want to harass the president. I think it's going to backfire on them like what happened with the Kavanaugh hearing.
HANNITY: And look what happened in 2010 with Obama his first midterm, six Senate seats lost, six, 62 House seats, that was 69 in total. In 1994, eight Senate seats, 52 House seats. And I think Matt Gaetz was saying, we're learning tonight good thing Donald Trump worked hard and picked up those Senate seats and we won those races.
GAETZ: Yes. Donald Trump is pretty good at winning states and that's what presidential reelection will be all about. President Trump's coalition clearly involves creating massive turnout in areas where he's popular. You know, he embraced the challenge of this midterm unlike any president in modern history.
Now we've got to make sure that the strategy of the resistance doesn't metastasize from obstruction in Congress to stealing elections. That's why the work we're doing in Florida is so important.
HANNITY: Yes.
GAETZ: I don't want to give the Democrats any opening in the future to go and do that.
HANNITY: All right. I want to thank you both. By the way, Steve, I did read your book. It's "Back in the Game: One Gunman, Countless Heroes, the Fight for My Life." Amazon.com. I hope people got a copy of it. It describes so many great heroes. Thank you.
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