Home Minority Whip Steve Scalise criticized the "defund the police" motion in a podcast look.
Photograph by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP through Getty Photos
Home Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) had sturdy phrases for the “defund the police” motion Wednesday, recalling how officers helped save his life throughout a 2017 mass taking pictures by a left-wing extremist.
“If it wasn’t for Capitol Police who had been on that ballfield that day — when, you already know, after they discuss defunding the police, one of many craziest concepts I’ve ever heard of in a city the place there’s a variety of loopy concepts, that’s why it’s the worst of them,” Scalise mentioned on the “Actual America” podcast hosted by Republican Nationwide Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
“How many individuals each day in communities are alive as a result of police risked their lives to maintain us secure?” the Louisiana lawmaker requested.
Scalise sustained near-fatal accidents by the hands of James Hodgkinson, who fired greater than 100 rounds at GOP lawmakers, employees and lobbyists whereas they had been training for the Congressional Baseball Recreation in Alexandria, Va.
“If it wasn’t for David Bailey, Crystal Griner, who had been the Capitol Cops with me, then the Virginia police who confirmed up later and finally confronted and took down the shooter — he had free reign over all of us, and his intention was to take us all out,” Scalise recalled. “So it’s a type of issues the place you say, ‘Have a look at anyone who dares to embrace that motion.’ I’ll take that on each day.”
Scalise famous that he's nonetheless in bodily remedy and is battling long-term nerve injury, earlier than accusing Democrats of turning a blind eye to political violence throughout the spectrum.
Progressive activists and lawmakers’ push to chop funding to police departments started to achieve traction after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the summertime of 2020. Whereas lawmakers on either side of the aisle have expressed help for reforms to forestall police brutality, GOP lawmakers have warned that slicing police funding results in an uptick in violent crime and hinders regulation enforcement from receiving the sources essential to guard communities.
“They don’t need either side of the story being informed,” Scalise mentioned. “There's a want you see on a few of their components to only need perennial victimhood.
“I don’t have a look at myself as a sufferer.” he added. “I’m fortunate God gave me a second probability. And but they solely wished to have a look at one facet of the story after we had been saying, ‘Look, if you wish to have a look at political violence, there was a complete lot of political violence that went unchecked through the summer time [of 2020] the place they had been killing cops, the place they had been beating individuals within the streets, burning down buildings. They didn’t need to have a look at any of that.”
Republicans are anticipated to make the “defund the police” motion a spotlight of their messaging technique this November because the occasion appears to take again the bulk in each chambers of Congress.
“[Americans are] rejecting this all throughout the board in states the place you wouldn’t suppose,” Scalise informed McDaniel. “The individuals of Minneapolis voted towards defunding the police when the Democrat leaders wished to defund the police.
“And so it exhibits you they’re manner out of contact, not solely with mainstream America, they’re out of contact with Democrat voters in a variety of these states,” he added. “And, you already know, we’re going to work to get it again. And we’re not simply going after Republican votes and impartial votes, there are a variety of Democrats which are coming our manner too due to this.”
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