Scalise embraces House GOP’s elder statesman role amid leadership shake-up speculation

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) has reached his peak elder statesman era in President Trump’s second term.

The No. 2 House Republican has harnessed policymaking lessons from Trump’s rocky first-term trifecta, providing institutional memory that is unique among the conference’s other top leaders who rose to their positions later. At the same time, Scalise has grown his relationship with Trump and enjoyed more cohesive working relationships with leadership colleagues.

That experience, plus his conservative bona fides and surviving a brush with death in the 2017 congressional baseball shooting, has positioned Scalise to be a top contender for the House GOP’s No. 1 slot should control of the House flip after the midterms. The always-on-message Scalise brushed off that prospect, though, as he expressed optimism about Republicans’ chances of defying history to keep control of the chamber.

In an interview with The Hill in his Capitol office last week, Scalise said he has a “unique skill set” with his conservative policy wonk roots and history of building trust with Trump. That has helped him most, he said, in pushing major legislation through a historically slim and complicated Republican majority.

“I think that goes back to being chairman of the Republican Study Committee,” Scalise said, referring to the largest policy-minded traditionally conservative caucus in the House, which he led more than a decade ago before jumping to be GOP Whip in 2014. 

“You’ve got to really take it serious and focus on the details, because the details are what matter.”

As House Republicans last year crafted the One Big Beautiful Bill that extended tax cuts and pushed through partisan spending priorities, Scalise was the only member of House Republican leadership who was also in a top leadership position when Republicans crafted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reconciliation bill in Trump’s first term in 2017.

“I learned from the first Trump term that he was not in sync with all of leadership. Some were fighting President Trump,” Scalise said of Trump’s first term, noting the president’s rough relationship with then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and saying Trump “didn’t have the closest relationship” with former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

That dynamic, Scalise said, led to delays in advancing a party legislative agenda. 

“We literally wasted the first six months with everybody being on different pages,” Scalise said.

Republican leaders didn’t want that to happen again should Trump win the 2024 election and........

© The Hill