House Majority Leader Steve Scalise says lawmakers need to stop making politics so personal.
Scalise says he’s had success over his long career by not burning bridges, even in a heavily polarized Congress where some representatives openly trash each other on increasingly personal terms.
Steve Scalise is On NOTUS: How to Avoid Making Conflict Personal
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise joins NOTUS’ Reese Gorman to talk about how to get things done in the House, why he decided to run for office and the assassination attempt that almost took his life.
“If you’re trying to settle scores, it’s going to make it hard for you to achieve all the big things you want to do,” Scalise told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman on the first episode of the On NOTUS podcast. “It’s hard to pass a bill into law. You have to build coalitions, in some cases with people that you don’t always agree with, and you can do that as long as you’re not trying to settle scores every day over yesterday’s fight.”
Scalise said he often tries to caution members to not “make your differences with people personal.”
The House returned from a 54-day recess during the government shutdown to heightened hostility between lawmakers. On Monday, they return for a three-week sprint to Christmas and have a number of high-profile agenda items to tackle — a daunting task in such a short timeframe.
Despite the current environment, Scalise said that he still is in awe of being able to work in Congress day in and day out.
“I mean, you see the Capitol when you’re a kid and you’re learning about civics in school, and I still pinch myself,” he said. “This never gets old, by the way, being able to work in the Capitol, it’s a living history museum.”
Scalise’s perspective on how to navigate relationships in Congress has its roots in his first political race in 1995, when he ran for a seat in the Louisiana State Legislature.
“You want to talk about how to get a voter’s support? You knock on their door when it’s raining,” Scalise said. “They’re like, ‘Either this person’s crazy nuts or they really do believe in what they say, and I’m going to support them if they’re that dedicated.’ I just went all in on the race and worked harder than anybody else, and that’s how we won.”
That Scalise is still excited to go to work may be surprising — but that he is still alive is a “miracle,” he said.
Scalise was shot and nearly lost his life in a mass-assassination attempt while at practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in 2017. He was hospitalized for over three months. Since then, the U.S. has seen a shocking uptick in political violence — from the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September to the murder of a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota in June — with 85% of Americans saying politically motivated violence is increasing.
“You don’t kill people you disagree with in a civilized democracy, for goodness sake, you can’t do that, and it can never be OK to do that, and we all need to speak out against it when we see it,” Scalise said.
“These are all human beings,” he said. “We’re all people with our own views. So what makes America great is that we don’t all think alike.”
Scalise said his dedication to his work inspired a return to Congress after his recovery.
“I never wanted to be a victim,” Scalise said. “I just said, ‘Look, I’m lucky to be alive now. How do I get better? How do I get back to doing what I loved?’ I love the job I do, and I was so lucky to be able to get back to it.”
On NOTUS is a weekly podcast in which host Reese Gorman talks to lawmakers about how they got to Washington and what motivates them. You can download or listen here.
Don’t miss the stories shaping Washington.
Sign in
Log into your free account with your email. Don’t have one?
Check your email for a one-time code.
We sent a 4-digit code to . Enter the pin to confirm your account.
New code will be available in 1:00
Let’s try this again.
We encountered an error with the passcode sent to . Please reenter your email.