House Time | Congressman Steve Scalise

[Music] I'm United States House Majority Leader Steve scalise and this is the elephant in the room welcome to the elephant in the room I'm your host Cyrus Pearson I'm your host Carly rap and you'll notice we've talked basically all Senate people up to this point if you've gone back in time over the podcast yes today we mixed it up we talked to somebody in the house but not just anybody not just anybody we talked to the House Majority Leader Steve Scalia yes what were your impressions amazing so sweet so kind and honestly just we hit so many topics I felt guilty of how nice he was and generous with his time and he stuck around after we finished and told us more stories doesn't he seem like one of those people who's just naturally likable naturally like well yes I mean just and the ad if you if you're hungry at all I would suggest eating before listening to this podcast yes we do hit on a lot of really delicious sounding food and I need to get down to New Orleans now if you have no desire you will probably after this podcast it's true so without further delay let's introduce you to House Majority Leader Steve scalise House Majority Leader Steve scales from Louisiana thank you so much for making the trip over to the Senate side today and joining us it's great to be on the elephant in the room and uh look looking forward to some fun here let's clear up some things how do you pronounce Louisiana Louisiana that's it you know New Orleans is the one that people have a lot of different uh takes on that's the follow-up question how would you recommend that yeah the you come in and you say nans you know they know you're from out of town you know New Orleans that's I was born in the City of New Orleans so I uh love the city and love the culture and all the things about it but uh that's how you say it great Insight info there and Carly has never been to nor go Super Bowl is in Taylor Swift's going to be here in October like you got to come to New Orleans oh that's a great place to be best food best music everything about it let's explore that a little I will tell you I actually officiated a wedding at Napoleon house how about that I love the Napoleon House uh representative uh Ralph Abraham was there told me I did a great job even though I was terrible so that was wonderful are they still married yeah they are they are did y'all have a muala they have the best madas at that is so funny we were wondering if you would bring that up uh Carly doesn't even know if that's a food so can you explain that so it was it was invented at at a place called down in uh the French Quarter uh there's there's this great little kind of a PoBoy joint kind of Italian grocery store okay Central Grocery and they invented the mufa sandwich and it's got just every it's just huge huge piece of bread with all kind of meats in the middle and like an olive salad in the middle and it's just phenomenal and then uh you know other places some do a better job than others other try to replicate it but Central groceries is the best place to get it but boy Napoleon House comes about as close as you can to uh to get in it right sounds delicious yeah do you have a personal favorite I mean I still get them from Central groc grocery when I when I can get down there and they just reopened it they had did a major renovation it's you know the French Quarter these are all like 3 400 year old buildings many of them so they they get a little beaten up uh and they they just completely redid it and the lines I'm sure down the street oh yeah uh I also got married myself at Brennan's where Bananas Foster is said to be invented Ralph Brennan's a dear friend they renovated that a few years ago uh you know again very old restaurant on Royal Street in the French Quarter you know when the classic breakfast at Brennan's and you know Ralph bought it from some other members of the family and kind of put probably $20 million into it it's beautiful but it looks like the old brennin of you know the 1940s and 50s and you can get still get breakfast at brennin and all the great Classics and you know Bananas Foster and all those things oh that's awesome and last thing I'll say this is not about me but I just wanted to share the experiences we got a second line band afterwards I'm not a dancer or anything I always thought to look foolish had so much fun everybody who came to the wedding had a great time why is the food the drinks and the atmosphere just so just popping down there why is it so great you know you can trace everything back and I tell people this you know like where do where do I go eat I don't want to eat out a you know the the beaten path like where do I go I said look the the real the best way to look at it is start with all the Commander's Palace chefs so you know you had Paul Pome classic French Creole chef you know French trained and French quisine used to be the classic but then you get these cun chefs and Paul was the one who started blending seasonings and you know so you learn true French cooking which is very unique and you need to know how to cook and then he Blended uh you know all the big cayenne pepper seasonings that come together from all around the world and then ultimately he left commanders to go start his own restaurant called K Paul's and he created black and red fish and he's the one who invented the whole blacken craze around the people will burn something and call it blackening that's not blackening it's you and Paul still to this day he passed away I got he personally gave me a tour when he was alive of his spice Factory and the spice Factory is still there and they make some of the best seasonings you can buy you can go online you know Paul prom's spices and you know black and red fish he has a meat magic you know to put on steaks and every one of them's phenomenal just brings out the flavor of foods in a way nothing else does but he uses these blends of all kind of incredible seasonings not really hot but like you know Cayenne got some heat to it but it's not if you don't overdo it anybody can eat it but anybody can cook with it if you really learn how to blacken things I love blackening red fish you know you go out and catch a red fish or even you know speckled trout you can catch other fish and then use his seasonings and it just tastes phenomenal and so you start there but then you know you go look Emerald Le gas came behind Paul prome at command ERS Palace and then you know the kid did okay for himself after he opened it one two three and four other restaurants and you know Emerald still has a large presence in New Orleans just redid his signature restaurant on chapula street with his son so now he's partnering with his son his daughter Merill has a restaurant New Orleans called Merrills so you know you just look at those chefs you know and you got great chefs like Frank Brighton a lot of people don't know worked under Paul prome went off and did his own restaurant in uptown New Orleans in Brighton's it's a small restaurant kind of like a real Cottage house so it's this cute little place you go in there it's tough to get a reservation you get a reservation it's going to be great great food and there you know J Jack leonardy who worked with Paul prome he opened up his own restaurant called jockamos funky funnest place you can go the menu is fascinating just massive everything you can imagine Seafood you know Creole food old food fried chicken that was you know just old recipes from uh you know all these great chefs and he still just packs the house every night 2hour wait A lot of times if you go it's worth the 2hour wait to go to jackamos I mean these are the fun places that you go to every one of them's a little different some of them white tablecloth real polished some of them jackamos just funky fun and you're going to have a great time and you're going to get the best meal you've ever had that's awesome you have a passion for food it sounds like oh my gosh I love these places I love to cook I love to go to these other places you know a dear friend of mine Tommy sanovich owns Drago restaurant he invented the car worlded oyster so here you take an oyster you know some people like oysters some people don't you eat this it's the single best bite of food anywhere in the world it's an oyster on a half shell and then he was coming up with all kind of ideas and finally came across garlic butter sauce you put the garlic butter sauce in there so the flame just goes crazy over the oyster so it's cooking the oyster and it's bubbling up and right then you put parmesan cheese on top and then you pull it off and here you got this great blend of things that just tastes phenomenal together and even somebody that would never eat an oyster they try a chared oyster with those you know garlic butter the parmesan and you know dip the bread and the butter that just is is exuding off the the oyster shell you you'll never find a better bite of food than expion for your taste buds drug an explosion for your taste buds so you know there you go I'll tell Tommy that one goodness you know and and it just created a sensation they've got six restaurants now Great America croatians who came to America seeking the American dream and hard hard work everything you want to think about America that's who they are great people and all the restaurant tours are like that the thing is these are some of the most famous restaurants around the world and you get to know the owners and they are just they're small business owners they love what they do they show up to work every day they know the quality control is really important they want to they love their customers they want to provide you an experience not just a good meal an experience you know so you might actually have a jazz or second line band in the restaurant you know you're going to you're watching the oysters being cooked on the flame and it's it's like it's whole entertainment just to watch the oysters being cooked at dragos you know you so you go to these places and they're funloving people when a hurricane hits they're helping the communities that got hit they're giving free food away to people who are trying to get their homes back I mean this is who they are but boy on on any given day you go there at night you're going to have a phenomenal meal and you don't have to go to Paris you don't have to go out of the country it's right here in New Orleans it it has struck me the times that been down there that it is a place you have a lot of people visiting for good reason obviously but there's a real sense of community right there um it's just it's it's incredible do you skip vacationing because this sounds like the most fun place in the world why would you leave you know we have jazz festival you know and it's always the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May two weeks a row you know we had the Rolling Stones this year we have phenomenal National bands but you also have Jazz you have you know zido which is one of the funnest forms of music I love zido you put a smile on your face they have gospel blues and you see it all in one day you literally buy one ticket you get in and you can see all of that in one day and they have phenomenal food so you have these booths you know like 200 booths of the best food you can find you know and it's just a fun experience people come in from all over the world for that JazzFest is incredibly popular has grown each year and so you know again you get the the nationally famous bands and then you get bands you've never heard heard of and each one of them is going to be just as fun amazing do you would you say JazzFest is more popular than Marty gr yeah over over the course of the two weekends obviously you know Migra is is about two weekends itself you know the real big Migra parade span over about a twoe period you know locals are going during the week tourists come in on the weekends you know and then for Marty grad day you know yeah you'll get a million people and half are locals and at least half if not more are from out of out of the state out of the country and and it's a unique experience too I ride in one of the bigger ones the crew of bakas it's it's incredibly fun we'll get at least a half a million people out on the streets for that and talk about an experience you know you're in a mask on a float throwing beads into de balloons and all these light up devices and people are going nuts and it's so much fun and uh you know just to see how people get into it you know you'll be in some sections where it's just kids you know with their parents and then there's some sections where you can't really talk about the stuff that goes on it's just fun people that are coming in and just W to like Vegas you know you don't you might not want to repeat you know how Marty was for you but you have a great time and you went to LSU actually you made yeah and uh you got a BS in computer science did I would say computers have changed a lot since you got gosh I I couldn't I couldn't program a computer today they've changed so much I I joke you know you meet with tech Titans and you know a lot of the the heads of tech companies uh that that you know you recognize the names of their companies all over the world uh a lot of them started off as coders programmers and and so when I meet with them you know you'll talk about the issues there's policy mostly they that they're concerned about like I am but we'll kind of geek back to the days where we actually used to write code and the funny thing is I will tell them up front I'm like look I used to write software I'd write algorithms I couldn't do it today to save my life because you know when you take this job in Congress you have to give up I I had to quit my tech company that I was working for and so it's been so long that I've been out of it that it changes so fast and so much and I joke I'm like couldn't and they laugh at me and they're like I couldn't code today either you know because you're especially if you're running a company you know you might have started off as the guy who came up with the idea and got 10 of your buddies and a couple of cases of beer and you came up with the you know the original Foundation of Facebook or whatever it is you're doing and then you then become a corporation you have to actually make a make a profit you have to sell ad space whatever you have to do you're moving further and further away from the coding and you bring in you know all these college kids to do it but then at some point in time you've built the company and now the company's humming and all that and you look back and you're like okay how do we write the Whoa man this is all very different it's different software it's different uh languages maybe than than you were using when you started writing and you know it's just uh it's a it's a whole new world but thank goodness it is I mean America dominates in Tech because we know how to innovate and Innovation means you're always changing you're always moving forward and so you know your skill set today is very different than what it was 20 years ago but you're doing different things that need to be done that you can do today that you couldn't do 10 years ago so you bring in other people that have those skills to code and then you're leading the company you're giving the vision for how we're going to go and continue to dominate and that's what is so much fun because you know just like in my job in Congress I mean as you see in the Senate every day is different every day you're dealing with something unique you know eight different things that are flying at you and you're just dealing with all of them you know you're you're in the tech world it's it's an everchanging very very fast changing industry you know there are other Industries too but I would argue none change as fast as in the tech industry and yet America dominates and we don't want to lose that strong position did you since you majored in this did you have any idea of the Innovation that would take place or how quickly that would take place no because you know look I'm I go back to the old school days of dual floppy discs you know and anybody that's like in the 80s you know that's that 80s was when I was in school and so you know you're you literally had limitations on memory so you know you can only fit as much as you could fit on that floppy disc or your data you couldn't have unlimited databases of hey I've got 800 people in my contacts no you might only be able to fit 25 and so when you would add things you'd have to go delete things because you'd run out of memory real quick and then it would all freeze up so you know today you don't have any of that to worry about so the things even that you were limited by back then there's absolutely no limitations today so data you know data's grown so much that your biggest challenge is is energy you know data centers artificial intelligence the biggest challenges they have is you know they're running all this data all this computing power that they have but it takes energy to do it so they need yeah bigger sources of energy so they can only locate in certain places of the country that's become the new limitation let's get back to energy in a little bit let's get to know what you do because I don't know how you have time to even go out and listen to music or eat all this food or anything uh you are the House Majority Leader for our listeners can you explain what that is and what your duties are yeah it's easier to explain in my last job I was at the house majority whip people like what do you do you know I'm like I'm threatening people did you watch House of Cards can you push people into the subway did you watch House of Cards I watched it after I got elected whip because I'm like everybody's telling me about like I got to see what I do like you killed a reporter you did that I'm like really I did real life you know can you I don't know I mean you know I joke with reporters I'm like have you seen what I did in the show you know I maybe I do that maybe I don't um no but I uh as a majority leader you know very different role you're in charge of all the Committees so you know kind of you're the chairman of the chairman I meet every week with the chairman of all the Committees in the house uh we talk about what the agenda is going to be for the week obviously you're you know you're dealing with what you're dealing with today but then we talk about what's coming down the road and especially with the Committees you know if there's an important bill we need to bring you we're working on a border security Bill well we might be looking at maybe two months down the road we need to bring that bill to the floor maybe it's two weeks down the road but if that's the case we need to make sure the bills are out of committee you know and in some of these cases like border security we had really five different Committees of jurisdiction so each committee had a different role to play so you need to make sure each of them are bringing their pieces out in time to piece it all together and get it on the floor when we have it scheduled on the floor two months down the road and so each of them are complicated you know if it's an easy bill you know you're renaming a post office you know that can come out whenever you need it but on the complicated bills where different parts of our conference as Republicans we don't all think a roote alike you know we need to put a coalition together so you're working on the Coalition of members you're working with committees if there's a problem and I tell every committee chair you know if you're going to have three votes of Republicans against that bill and committee that's probably 20 votes on the house floor and we have a four- seat majority that means the bill fails yeah so you've got to fix your problems in committee you know and and if there's a couple of Republicans on your committee that have an issue that means there's going to be bigger problems down the road you can't wait until it gets to the floor for us to fix it then it's too big of a problem fix it in committee take the time I'll work with you I'll help you you know and so you're working with all of the chairman you know some of them have great ideas and they want this idea to come to the floor and you know I kind of hearken back to my old whip days where you really do know the pulse of the the membership and you can tell okay that's a great idea but have you worked through with this group or that caucus because that that group has some big problems with this piece of what you're trying to do just make sure you take care of that before you bring the bill out of committee so we can pass it because I want the bills to pass I want them to be successful of course and then there's members that have really important initiatives and you know maybe they need help getting their bill through committee and they'll come to me and you work with them to make sure they're achieving their objective and then the other part of my job is majority leader and this is kind of the one that's the most public is I set the floor schedule so which bills are on the floor when they're on the floor how how they're going to be debated all of that is you know put forward by me I don't do this in a vacuum I'm talking to the speaker on a regular basis you know you're you're working with the Committees to see when can they you know when can they have the bills ready and and those sort of things so you know you're working with a lot of different people that's a fun part of it because these are all people who are really really smart they know what they do they're good at what they do and you know when when you have a conflict you just confront it head on I know a lot of people like avoiding conflict I sure wouldn't mind doing that too but you don't have the luxury I mean if you got a problem deal with it headon before it becomes a big problem on the house floor you have 435 people on the house floor that is not the place to fix a problem of course once you pass it out of the house do you do anything to process it over here to the Senate side what is your role to help transition any of those bills over to the sen it yeah and it depends you know sometimes when you think about the partisan bills you know hr1 hr2 great energy policy great strong border security policy you know that you know and a Chuck Schumer sent it he didn't want any of those bills so we're more pushing pressure on the outside you know we're going on TV we're going to different interest groups that really care about a secure border you know or frankly any group you talk to in America I travel all around the country to help candidates you know so you're in swing districts all the time I mention to every group I talk to you know especially if I'm I'll be in New York next week you know hey call Chuck Schumer he's your Senator he's the reason we don't have border security here's the bill this is what it does and we worked with our border patrol agents to do it you know you want lower gas prices we passed hr1 great bill go read it you got an issue with it call me I've never heard a problem because that bill will lower gas prices today Chuck won't bring it up yes and so you know when when it's a Republican Senate obviously you have better cooperation to work with the you know the other body but here in a case like this you know you just got to put pressure where you can to try to move your cause and then if you still can't get it done like you see today that's why we have elections and the elections coming up real soon everybody needs to vote yeah it's an important job with a lot of moving parts and we're going to I think get a little more rapid after this but my question is how did you learn to do this did you have a mentor did you make some mistakes and you got there what happened I had a lot of mentors I served 12 years in Louisiana Legend legislature you know I got elected at 30 I was still working for a tech company but my minor at LSU you know major computer science minor was political science and one of my teachers was James Carville you know and these are the days where you could actually disagree with your professor I got an A in his class somehow I might get kicked out of that class today but uh James and I are actually still friends we talk a lot you know we don't agree with each other on anything except LSU he went to LSU and soai um I joke with him if I really want to give him a hard time that he was my teacher I was the student you know a damn you know I shouldn't have let you in a class you know we have a lot of fun you know but uh you know it just shows you that you just go out there and you you care about what you you believe in you fight for what you believe in you don't treat people with disrespect you don't demonize them if they disagree and and we can still be cordal and and friends but you know but be on the opposite sides but I learned a lot in a lot of those classes I mean I had professors from Berkeley and all these other places and you you know we disagree over a lot of stuff but you learn a lot of amazing things but then in practice I was in the state Louisiana politics look DC's got nothing on Louisiana politics I went into the house when a third of the House and Senate were Republican you know we were deep deep minority yet I still was able to pass major bills you know I had Charlton hon come and testify for one of my bills to stop cities from suing gun makers when they were trying to bankrupt the gun industry right after big tobacco and and I I had some people approach me and tell me they're getting about to get sued into bankruptcy and I'm like they can't do that let's pass a bill like so I filed a bill and next thing you know Boom the NRA is interested charlton's testifying goes all the way up to the US Supreme Court was upheld here's a non attorney I'm two and0 at the US Supreme Court you know so uh a lot of attorneys don't have anything like that record but uh but in the next day the lawsuits all around the country were thrown out and so you know again I'm passionate about issues but if you fight for the issues even if you're in the Deep minority in a place like Louisiana you can figure out how to put coalitions together to get your bills through uh and so I learned how to build coalitions even when we don't all agree on some things Monday Tuesday that guy might be your best ally so don't mistreat him on Monday or else he's not going to help you with what you want to achieve you know you go up there to achieve something every day you're you're trying to demonize somebody else and and make enemies of people they're going to spend their time impeding your ability to be successful why why do that when you only have so much time uh you know however 12 years in the legislature able to do lot but boom it's over you know and you want to look back and go did I use my time effectively same thing here in Congress let's talk about something uh not so fun but a a very well known June 14th 2017 uh a left-winged activist started shooting during a practice for the annual Congressional baseball game that you were at uh you were hit you received life-threatening injuries and I think a lot of people have the question how are you today um look I am I'm blessed by God there's no reason I should have made it through that day I I you know I look back on that day so many times you know people want you to be a victim I'm not a victim I'm I'm a Survivor I'm lucky to be alive but you know it's I'm feeling great I have never felt better I just got a new hip about a month ago and part because of the Damage Done from the shooting because you know where the bullet went in it really deteriorated all the the cartilage in my left hip and so you know for about a year I'd been walking bone on bone which is you know pain you don't want to talk about but I finally got it taken care of I feel great I mean walking with no pain at all but you know I didn't I came real close to not making it through that day and and there were Miracles I mean real Miracles that you can't explain away you know and heroes I mean Brad winstrip a colleague of mine from Ohio who was a medical doctor combat surgeon and and he had seen this kind of uh injury in combat and was able to keep me alive to get to the hospital I wouldn't have made it without Brad there David Bailey you know and Crystal grinder with Capitol Police who were with me because I the whip if I'm not there and they're not there with me there's at least a dozen members of Congress that this guy takes out cuz that was his intention to kill every Republican on the ball field and he was literally these two Capitol police officers away from being able to do it both of them were shot during the shootout and yet kept doing their job to take him down real life Heroes so Miracles and heroes are what I remember from that day and I know I'm lucky to be alive so I'm playing with The house's money uh not many people have been been shot for political reasons so you're in a unique position to answer this what went through your mind when you saw Trump had been shot and further that there was a second attempt on him yeah you know especially the Butler Pennsylvania shooting um it was my wife and I were watching TV and you know it was a Saturday we weren't expecting anything like this to happen and so you know we we once we started getting the little you know tweets are coming in we're like what's is this real so you know we changed the channel we you know we're watching probably Sports I think football and um put it on uh Fox and it's like is this really happening and uh it definitely brought back a lot of memories um you know but I remember a few days later you we had the convention and and I texted president Trump the day of the shooting but you know I got to see him in person for the first time at the convention we talked for a little while and and he was wonderful to me when I was shot it happened to be on his birthday you know June 14th is Trump's birthday he left his birthday party at the White House with Milani to come to the hospital you know I'm I'm in a coma 3 days but my wife had come in from New Orleans to see if I was going to make it through the night they didn't know and Trump was consoling her and my kids and he invited them to the White House a few days later to just he gave them a personal tour just to get their mind off of you know geez your dad's struggling in the hospital you know and they're just hanging around a hospital all day for days and days he he you know to kind of get their mind off of that he brought them to the White House he's just wonderful and so I I said look I first of all I said I I wanted to look at him in his eye and see if he was okay you know I mean you know how are you feeling mentally how are you you know having that happen to you and I know you know what I had to go through and he he was fine and great you know great spirits and and I said now I was like we're in this same fraternity the fraternity isn't people who got shot it's people who lived through it and that's the most important part is that we're lucky to be alive and he looked at me and he goes Steve I know I know that I'm lucky to be alive and that I probably shouldn't be here so it he definitely has a similar Reckoning and and thank God because gee whiz we don't want to think of what what could have happened on the side of that I really do think when you look at that whole setup similar to what happened to me there's there's there was Miracles perform that day to keep president Trump alive because it easily could have gone the other way I is there a message or a clarification we can give to the American people I know there's political disagreements and they're heated people up here who are Representatives they don't want to literally kill themselves I mean that's not the atmosphere is it yeah and that's why look I I really do think and I've said this vocally a lot the rhetoric has to tone down and and it's not just hey both sides need to do it everybody says that but I mean when you're saying your opponent's Hitler or a threat to democracy uh you know in my case they were talking about Healthcare and you're going to die if the Republicans get their way that's all so hypercharged and so untrue by the way but all it takes is one person who's unhinged to hear that and then their message they take it as a call to action you know to go take action oh G whiz he's going to be a threat to democracy I will stop him and frankly that was what the second shooter did too the attempted shooter luckily he didn't get off his shot uh out there at Mar Lago but he he was going to and his reasoning was and he wrote it down in social media it was the whole threat to democracy garbage and it's like okay y'all have to stop saying it because if you're saying this thing and this thing is causing people who are unhinged to then want to take action in their own hand and go kill somebody then you have to stop saying it and I've called on Kon down stop saying that kind of language because it's triggering people to want to take action to kill somebody you know you you've got to think about what your words mean we all have a First Amendment right you can say whatever you want but no there's consequences and if you know what you're saying is inciting somebody to murder someone else and you don't stop it it's on you let's shift before we run out of time and talk about a couple other things let's talk about the Congressional baseball games I talked to Senator Eric Schmidt this morning and we were wonder he can rock the ball man yeah are are you appreciative to have some help from the side goodness the Senate finally sent to somebody who can hit he can knock it out the park he's definitely you saw him bring it to the warning track so now uh do you you love baseball where did your love of baseball come from you know this is the funny thing I really didn't love the game until you know I I might have played Little League a little bit did you know loved basketball when I was growing up I played a lot of tennis I was you know in in a lot of those Sports I swam competitively in aou but B baseball just wasn't the sport and I come to Congress and right right away I I moov in the townhouse owned by John shimkus and shimkus had pitched many years was a MVP winning pitcher Kevin Brady you know MVP second baseman and I I finally took the spot away from him but he is really really good and um you know just these great great guys who who were just dear friends and first you know week I'm living with them they started practicing they're like all right you're coming to practice tomorrow H I'm like practice for what they talked about the baseball I didn't I didn't you have a glove on there and they're like look well loan your glove come on out and so I started doing it man it turned out to be a lot of fun I really fell in love with the game I'm like if I was a little kid with this kind of love I I might be able to make the pros but I mean like we we've had a lot of you know Steve garvey's come out George Brett recently uh you know said he wants to come out to our practices and you know we got of course you know Roger Williams our Skipper who played in the Braves organization Daryl Daryl Evans who was on the Detroit Tigers World Series teams comes out and because so we get a lot former Major Leaguers we play in the big league park it's fun 25,000 people came out this year Major League Baseball said more than half we we had in our Stadium more than half of the major league baseball teams had in their stadium that night you know they might have 15,000 in Cleveland or 12,000 in pick your te but I mean 25,000 people raising over 2.2 million for local charities and so it's really become you know a great event you competitive we're competitive people we want to win Schmidt's got a you you know two W's now uh he's only been up here two years he's doing pretty good but no we uh we have a lot of fun just practicing at 6 I'm not a morning person 6:00 a.m. is when practices are but once you're out there you're playing baseball with your friends I mean how does it get better than that and then you get to play in the big league ballpark beat the Democrats which we did before your staff gets too mad at us uh let me bring up just two more things um you have your interest is to unleash American Energy you have ideas on that can you tell us about that why it's important what the ideas I know what we're capable of as a country I come from south Louisiana my district includes Port fuson which is the Hub of deep water drilling I actually bring members of Congress from all around the country down to a deep water you know whether it's a drilling platform a you know production facility you know we go out 60 miles plus in the Gulf of Mexico and then you're just flying out on a helicopter and then there's nothing it's just water and then all of a sudden you see this little Dot and becomes bigger and bigger and then it's this floating city and you land on it and we'll spend maybe 4 hours and you just walk the whole platform and it's they're all like $2 billion plus privately funded facilities all incredibly modern technology at least probably 150 to 200 people working on them at any time 247 and it's just amazing how you can produce energy uh 100,000 barrels a day on some of these facilities and if we unleash that potential for you know LG we are now the the king of LG exports except Biden put a moratorium that's killed our ability to build new LG EXP I I've got a $28 billion facility being built in the district uh mouth of the Mississippi River great location all the pipelines are tied in they have another 28 billion of private money no taxpayer funding all ready to go they have the land acquired they have the whole site plan and all they're waiting on is one permit from the federal government that they won't give them because of Biden's moratorium if we were able to do that second plant do you know who we'd be helping out we would be supplanting Russia first of all cuz Russia's making billions a month off of this Iran making billions a month off of selling their energy because we shut ours down through really stupid policy coming out of the Biden Harris Administration but if you look at what that new facility would be able to do if they built it first of all 28 billion dollar of privately funded construction the jobs that would come with it when it's open we would be exporting energy to Germany and Poland they are getting their natural gas right now from Russia they don't want to be send their money to Putin to fund the war in Ukraine by the way so we're spending this money to send to zalinsky to fight Russia Russia's funding his whole war effort off of billions a month he makes off of energy he sells because we shut America down how stupid is this so we're funding our enemies who are using it against our friends and then we're sending money to our friends to help them who are fighting our enemies how about we just shut off our enemy source of Revenue make energy in America it's the cleanest place in the world to make it you want to save the planet lower carbon emissions stop letting Russia do it they don't have good standards Venezuela pick your favorite country Iran Let's Make It in America and then again we send that natural gas to Poland who would much rather buy it from us than Russia send ours to Germany they don't have to buy it to it then you're taking money directly out of the pocket of Putin that he can't be using against places like Ukraine all of this it makes all the sense in the world to anybody who looks at it except the crazy farle and Biden unfortunately and Harris have ided with them it's costing us not not only higher gas prices we were paying less than $2 a gallon four years ago just remember that you know no reason that we're paying what we're paying today but then the jobs that we're losing and the natural uh National Security and strategic ability to geopolitically help your friends around the world all of it makes sense we can get back to it very quickly in hr1 is a bill we passed a lot of that can be done administratively president Trump will put that in place day one you know and then the things where you need to make make law change law get permitting reforms that are desperately needed let's go past those bills and fix those problems and then become energy dominant again and then you supplant Russia Iran you know you're seeing all the bad bad people uh stop letting them make billions let's bring it back to America so it's not just for America to lower our gas prices it's not just to bring Jobs pric go down too by the way food prices jobs back in America but it also helps us overall broadly your trade balance you're bringing billions back in look wow this idea that we're going to go to you know unicorns and pixie dust and you know you plug your electric car into a tree where do you think you recharge the battery yeah it's it's not you know you don't have solar panels on Air Force One when he flies around you need jet fuel you need natural gas to recharge your electric vehicle where the batter is made in China by the way how much sense does that make like we have the the the most upside down energy policies right now and the strategy is is clueless uh there's a quick way you can turn this around you can really fix a lot of this in the first 100 days that's amazing final question I've asked a couple Senators this you mentioned the election coming up what is at stake if Democrats get control of Congress and the presidency versus Republicans well you saw a little bit of a glimpse when Biden first came in because he had the house senate and white house but the difference is now kamla is flat out saying she wants to blow up the filibuster she wants to pack the Supreme Court she wants to get rid of the Trump tax cuts so you know if you think having a 21% corporate rate where you know by the way when they when they act like oh don't worry it's only the Millionaires and billionaires if you go from 21 to 35% do you really think if you go to McDonald's if you go to Walmart these are corporations they're paying 21 today if they're paying 35% in taxes they they don't have a piggy bank to go get it from they're going to raise their prices so you see a whole lot of billionaires is going into to Walmart or going into you know McDonald's right now I know who goes into McDonald's and Walmart they don't realize that 14% increase in their bill is going to be coming if KLA Harris is President and she's said it she's promised it you know it's going to mean they're not exempt from that new tax they will be bombarded plus higher energy costs which are killing them higher food costs all of that comes as part and parcel to that radical agenda and so if you want to pay more food costs you're already paying too much you know KL is going to do that if they have the trifecta uh they've telegraphed what they would do all of it is horrible for the middle class you know that oh if you're making less than 400,000 get ready you're about to take a major major haircut and you don't have the money you're already struggling under what they already did to you KLA was the deciding vote by the way on many of those bills the inflation Bill doubling the size of the RS I have been in in politics 16 years I've never gotten a single call going hey Steve add one more person to the IRS I don't think they have enough folks kast a deciding vote to add 87,000 more IRS workers and they're going after middle inome people right now you know is that really what you want that's kamla's world if she gets it all any last question I don't think so that's a great place to end it yeah leader scalise uh I I don't think it was fair to talk about all that food cuz I'm probably having a vending machine hot dog today let's at least go get some beignet you know there we go we worked it in thanks for making the trip all the way over here to the Senate side and uh Steve scales being today's guest on the elephant in the room love coming to see you thanks for having me thank you so what would excite you most to go down there and see you got Marty Gro you got the foods you got JazzFest honestly just to go down there and see everything the culture of what New Orleans is the French Quarter everything just sounds beautiful the architecture sounds beautiful the food sounds just delicious I mean I want to see at all when you go there it is a trip for all your senses it really is and I'm not paid to say that but I just I I absolutely love the place and Louisiana is more than just New Orleans but I mean you if you haven't visited you have to go down there sounds about right the elephant in the room is brought to you under the direction of US senator John barasso of Wyoming our executive producer is arjin Modi our show producer is our host right here Carly rap thanks for organizing all this our technical director is Rashad Smith thanks for listening and until next time this has been the elephant in the room