11 months ago
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has had one of the most unusual careers in Congress ever since he won a special election in 2008 to replace Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal.
It has been characterized by long stretches of relative anonymity punctuated by a series of life-altering events.
In 2014, Scalise was quickly catapulted into the position of GOP Whip after Eric Cantor was defeated in a shocking upset that reordered the House GOP.
In 2017, Scalise was almost killed by a lunatic gunman while at baseball practice for the annual congressional game.
Earlier this year, Scalise was diagnosed with a blood cancer for which he’s been receiving chemotherapy.
And in October, when Kevin McCarthy was overthrown, Scalise, the number two Republican, thought it was only natural that his colleagues would want him to move up a rung.
But they didn’t — at least not enough of them. Scalise won an internal conference vote but he abandoned his quest for speaker before it ever got to the floor for a final vote.
So what happened?
Well, there was his toxic relationship with Kevin McCarthy.
The back stabbing of a fellow member from Louisiana.
The Trump factor.
And then at the end of the process, the man Republicans promoted — Scalise’s new boss — was Mike Johnson, a junior member of his home state delegation.
On this episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza asks Steve Scalise about all of that and a lot more, including impeachment, why he will vote against expelling George Santos, and how Mike Johnson is trying to use immigration to tame hardliners when it comes to the spending showdown with Joe Biden.
English (US)