Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Steve Scalise

Interview

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HANNITY: Steve Scalise, 25 MS-13 gang members just deported. We have ICE haters - this is this week alone - invading defacing images of fallen heroes at a museum. Border apprehension is nearly double what they were last year, as everyone tries to get in quickly before the wall is built. Fed has busted a massive Mexican drug cartel operation in North Carolina. And Beto and company, they want to tear down that border wall. Your reaction.

REP. STEVE SCALISE, R-LA., HOUSE MINORITY WHIP: Well, Sean, first of all, anybody who tries to claim it's a manufactured crisis ought to first go out and apologize to everyone of those angel moms, the parents who have lost loved ones.

Look, in my own part of South Louisiana, we have Spencer Chauvin who's a hero, a firefighter, who was killed by somebody here illegally. Sean, just Friday, in South Louisiana, there was a person who was here in the country illegally convicted of molesting a child who was deported in 2016 because of that felony, got back into the country illegally again. Who knows how many more crimes he committed? They just captured him Friday.

We have a serious crisis at our border. You can't have such an open border where you literally have people who were deported for being child molesters that are able to come right back into this country unchecked, and Democrats are OK with that and call it a manufactured crisis.

HANNITY: Well, I don't think - it's funny because there's 4,000 homicides in a two-year period, 30,000 sex assaults, John James, in a two-year period; 100,000 violent assaults. And by the way, Nancy Pelosi saying no, ICE will not be alerted if illegals fail gun background checks. OK, that makes a lot of sense.

JAMES: Well, I absolutely support securing our borders, and I think that we need to make sure we give ICE and our Border Patrol and security personnel all the resources they need. Look, you can't control every variable. But you better doggone well control the variables that you can. And if you can do more to secure our border, if you can do more to keep our families safe, our President's number one job - his number one job is to enforce the laws of this country and to keep Americans safe.

And I don't see this as controversial for our President to finally keep his promises that other presidents have made to secure our border to keep Americans safe. Our President is actually doing it. So I don't find it controversial to keep Americans safe. And I'm looking forward to doing everything I can to do that here and above.

HANNITY: How is it possible though? Between cartels, gangs, 90 percent heroin, Steve Scalise, fentanyl, the homicides I mentioned, the sexual assaults I mentioned, the violent assaults I mentioned, angel moms and dads, how is it possible they can even suggest manufactured?

SCALISE: Well, this has become a real problem for the Democrat Party. When you see this denial, it looked - the Americans across the board believe in national security and border security. They know what's going on. They know that President Trump said that he's going to secure our border and he's following through on that promise. And frankly, he's going to be rewarded by it in any of these open border Democrats. I hope they continue to push back because it shows the divide. President Trump is working to keep our country safe.

HANNITY: Thank you, both. And John James, I hope there is a position for you in the administration. That'd be great.

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