Rep. Steve Scalise Wednesday questioned Democrats' sincerity on coming to agreement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — or for that matter, immigration itself — when they failed to make progress on the matter when President Barack Obama was in office.
"When they had super majorities in the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi was speaker, Barack Obama was president, they didn't do anything on immigration," the Louisiana Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Sandra Smith. "They weren't serious about it back then."
President Donald Trump has a detailed plan on immigration, including building a wall at the Mexican border, that has been around since he campaigned for office, Scalise said, and Republicans, as the deadline nears for passing the federal government's spending bill, are working closely with the president.
"We know the things that we've been talking about for a long time and that is number one, securing the border, working very closely with President Trump to make sure he has the resources he needs to start building the wall," said Scalise. "It is something President Trump campaigned on and even people that disagree with him know it was a front and center issue. The people across this country made a strong statement when they elected President Trump that they wanted to get the economy back on track. They wanted to stand for rule of law by securing our border, and it starts with these conversations. Ultimately, I think we will get an agreement."
Trump is meeting on Wednesday with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer concerning the pending spending bill.
This year will be a busy one, Scalise said, and starts with trying to get a budget agreement so the Department of Defense can be funded.
"With all the threats we see around the world, Iran in disarray but moving towards a nuclear weapon; North Korea, trying to advance their ability to deploy a nuclear weapon; Russia trying to get more aggressive around the world, we need to make sure our men and women in uniform have the tools they need and right now that's in question," said Scalise.
Lawmakers also need to look at other agenda items, such as welfare reform, and returning more people back into the workforce, said Scalise.
Meanwhile, Republicans can claim victory in getting tax reform done by the end of 2017, and Americans already are starting to see the benefits from that, said Scalise, as several companies are already starting to give pay raises and bonuses to their employees.
"I think what you are seeing is this idea that American workers are in demand again and so it will continue throughout the year," he said. "Just in my district, I'm going to tour tomorrow a local family-owned company doing the same thing. They made more than a million dollar investment in their workers because of this tax cut bill passed. So small businesses like that are doing the same thing that the larger high-profile companies like AT&T are doing."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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