Our Chat with US House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in Montana

We got to sit down with US House Majority Leader Steve Scalise as he dropped in following our coverage of the Western Congressional Caucus summit meetings in the Flathead Valley. We talked about how the Big Beautiful Bill helps the West and more.

House Maj. Ldr. Scalise: "We open up so much to production again where you can drill for oil, natural gas, critical minerals. And you know that's one thing I think we're going to see a lot more. It's going to bring down energy costs. It's going to create good jobs, and by the way, it takes leverage away from bad actors like Putin. Putin is making billions a month selling his energy to people around the world. Why should we be doing that when America could fill that void?"

As Scalise sat down with Montana Talks statewide radio host Aaron Flint- we also talked border security, the need for more federal spending cuts, and of course the largest tax cut in American history.

Scalise: "We've only been in seven months with President Trump, and you think of all the things we've been able to do- we solidified America's tax code so that nobody gets a tax increase. That was about to happen. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, are going to be big benefits, not to the millionaires and billionaires, but to middle class families, to blue collar workers. You know, you're a shift worker, if you're a cop, if you're a nurse working overtime, you're not going to have to pay taxes on your overtime. And by the way, we made that retroactive to January, so anything you paid all the way up until the bill got signed on July 4 by President Trump, you'll get all that money back. Those are going to be things that put real money in the pockets of hard working families."

Scalise praised Montana's Western District Congressman and former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who was hosting this week's Western Congressional Caucus summit, and newly elected US Senator Tim Sheehy (R--MT) for all of this work being done.

What about the midterm elections. Will Trump supporters stay in the game? 

Scalise: "You go back to 2018- you know, we had two years of President Trump in his first term, things were starting to turn around. We're getting the economy moving again. And people, like you said, got complacent. Hey, look, everything's great. I don't need to vote in 2018 and guess what? The crazy leftist Marxist, you know, the people that are destroying cities like New York and San Francisco- they showed up in 2018, we didn't, and we ended up with Nancy Pelosi as speaker, and the first thing they did was impeach Trump. They went after all his Cabinet secretaries and the agenda was dead and the momentum was dead, and our country started taking steps backward again. We can't let that happen next year, it is a midterm election. You know, typically you have lower turnout. If everybody who likes what Trump is doing shows up and votes next year, look out, we will have a run like we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan. And we remember those days, you know, I came up under the Ronald Reagan days of the, you know, the shining city on the hill, after years of Carter and malaise and everybody was depressed and thought, gee, was America's best days are behind us. And then, boom, Reagan turned it around and reminded us that America is still the greatest country in the history of the world. Trump has done the same thing. I mean, four years of Biden may actually be worse than the four years of Jimmy Carter, but Carter produced Reagan. Biden produced Donald Trump 2.0 and wow, it has been a great ride, but don't make it a two year ride. Let's get all four years out of Donald Trump's presidency of working and delivering big wins for the American people, which means everybody's got to show up next year. Re-elect Ryan Zinke because he's doing a great job, and it's a tough district that he's in, but let's keep this momentum going."

Keep an eye on our Montana Talks podcast and the full audio should be posted soon from Friday's statewide 9am hour containing our chat with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.