Another Republican leader has expressed support for embattled House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who has been under fire after admitting he spoke to a white supremacist group in 2002.
Rep.-elect Ken Buck of Colorado, the incoming House Republican freshman class president, said during a taping Friday of C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program that fellow Republican Scalise is a “great man” who has “demonstrated over and over again that he is open to all Americans who believe in strengthening this country.”
Buck said the Louisiana lawmaker, who is the House’s No. 3 Republican, has apologized for speaking to the group and that his legislative track record shows he is a man of integrity who abhors racism.
The incident “was years ago, and he has demonstrated through his legislative career that that’s not who he is,” said the conservative incoming congressman. “I think that the Republican Party will continue to be a party that welcomes all Americans who want a strong America, both economically and as a world leader.”
Some critics have pressed Scalise to step down from his leadership post after news broke earlier this week that he spoke to a white nationalist group in 2002 led by former Ku Klux Klan leader and former Louisiana state House member David Duke. Scalise at the time was a Louisiana state House member. But House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and House House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California both say they stand by Scalise.
Buck predicted issue involving Scalise soon will fade from the public conscious.
“The American people sent us to Washington, D.C., to solve problems, and I don’t think that the issue involving Steve Scalise is going to an issue after [the new Congress gets] sworn in on the sixth of January,” he said.
The “Newsmakers” episode will air on C-SPAN at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday.
