Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Steve Scalise
Interview
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HANNITY: As we continue our "Hannity Government Watch" tonight, Democrats refused to budge on securing the nation's border. The radical left appears to be growing more unhinged by the minute.
Over the weekend, Republican Congressman Steve Scalise, he faced violent, hateful, radical words from supporters of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez who made references to the assassination attempt on the GOP Congressmen by James Hodgkinson in 2017. Hateful words including "Kick his cane and snipe his ass". And we reached out to Ocasio-Cortez's office for comment, they haven't responded.
He's here with reaction and House Minority Whip, Louisiana Congressman, Steve Scalise. I'm not going to hold the Congresswoman responsible for what some of our crazy supporters say. And I like - as I did not hold Bernie Sanders is responsible as one of his supporters was involved in the shooting that nearly took your life.
But do you think there's an obligation when this is happening for people to step up and say to the people that support them, knock it off?
REP. STEVE SCALISE, R-LA.: Clearly, Sean, she ought to own up and just say, look, this isn't something that I condone and she doesn't, like you said, own this herself directly, but she shouldn't condone it either and you shouldn't look the other way. We shouldn't tolerate either side, our friends or our enemies in a political debate to encourage or incite a violence against another person.
And so, look, I was having a good debate about whether or not they should confiscate 70% of people's taxes at a marginal tax rate that I think is ridiculous and it's beyond. She talks about Sweden and these other socialist countries. Sweden, I think, has the highest European rate and theirs is about 61%.
She doesn't think that's enough. She wants to go to 70%, and probably wouldn't stop there. And I thought it was an important debate to go back and forth on and then you saw some of that stuff. And I said, look, I'm not going to - I'm not going to engage in that kind of violence.
HANNITY: Let me ask about the rhetoric, because you have this new Congresswoman saying, "We're going to impeach the MF'er". And Nancy Pelosi - well, she didn't seem to care very much about it. Then you have Congressman Hank Johnson comparing the President to Hitler and then you have other people on Hate Trump TV, "he needs his diaper changed".
Look, I'm not offended by words like so many others feign to be. But when it talks about violence, it gets to a line that, I think, we have a responsibility to call out.
SCALISE: It is. And, look, to me they're lines. There's a First Amendment and I fully respect that. But the First Amendment doesn't allow you to say fire in a movie theater. There are limits. And when you incite violence against someone else, that's not the way we act in this country.
And so, if you want to debate the merits then go ahead, that's what's great about this country. Frankly, if you're losing the debate, that's when you usually have to resort to name-calling and that's why so many on the left want to call names to Donald Trump, as opposed to try to argue whether or not we should have a secure border.
They don't want secure borders, but they don't want --
HANNITY: Here's what they see, though.
SCALISE: --look like they are for open borders.
HANNITY: Don't you think that this is a winning issue for the Republican and the President in light of drug trafficking, human trafficking, gangs, potential terrorists that Secretary Nielsen is warning. And then we have the sanctuary cities where we literally are protecting alien criminals that commit crimes in this country and we don't hand them over to ICE to deport them. Isn't that aiding and abetting future crime? Aren't you partly responsible for what they do?
SCALISE: Right. We've seen the violent crime that comes across the border every day. People that want to come here legally, there are a lot of legal ways to come here, and we still are the most generous nation in the world in letting people come to this country legally.
But you also see there's a dark side of people who want to bring drugs into our country. Last year ICE agents saved 900 children from human trafficking and sexual assault. It's really going on. We need to secure the border.
And by the way you saw Chuck Schumer for this in 2006 when Donald Trump wasn't President. Now he's President--
HANNITY: Yes.
SCALISE: --and Schumer doesn't want to build the same wall that he voted for. It's..
HANNITY: By the way, if that doesn't show he supported it, Hillary supported the wall, Obama supported the wall, so they are the ones politicizing the whole wall issue.
SCALISE: Obama voted for $25 billion wall. The President is asking for 5 billion.
HANNITY: Right. Well, they couldn't even show up and show the Vice President or the President the respect to even negotiate the issue, which I think, speaks volumes about them. And I think the President--
SCALISE: They ought to put an alternative on the table. If they don't want to secure the border--
HANNITY: Saving lives--
SCALISE: --a dollar is not a serious response. Put a real offer on the table and go and defend it with the American people. Don't say you're for border security and then oppose the very money it's going to take to secure our border.
HANNITY: Saving the country from the importation of drugs, human trafficking and violent criminals and protecting them, that's worth fighting over. And the President, thankfully, is holding strong.
All right. When we come back, "Hannity Watch" left-wing Hollywood, their liberal bias full display at the Golden Globes, but the conservatives, they're hitting back hard, we'll tell you how, next.
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