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 Act, which 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 the party’s 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 if Trump won the 2024 election and started planning months ahead of time what they would do legislatively if the GOP won trifecta control of government. Scalise said he flew to Mar-a-Lago to talk to Trump about those ideas about six months before the election — and took his suggestions of what kind of policies to add, like the “no tax on tips” provision for qualified tipped workers.

“Our relationship has grown through the years to where we not only trust each other, but he also knows that I have a really good understanding of how the House works,” Scalise said of his relationship with Trump. “We’ve been able to bridge some gaps through some of that trust.”

Then, Scalise got into the policy weeds — and management of the committee leaders crafting the various aspects of what would eventually get put into the bill, even months ahead of the election.

“I had tasked the committees with very aggressive things to do, but I gave them the clear direction along the way,” Scalise said. “I gave everybody deadlines — you know, ‘Get the bills out by these times. These are your target numbers.’”

In the end, the House GOP was able to overcome infighting made more complicated by the slim Republican majority and deliver the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which Republicans and the White House have since worked to rebrand as the Working Families Tax Cuts — to Trump’s desk by July 4 last year.

The dynamics in the House GOP have shifted dramatically in Scalise’s nearly two decades in Congress. Narrow margins and emboldened hard-liners have led to out-in-the-open rebellions on legislative items big and small on a near-weekly basis.

Scalise said the aim of the leadership team now is to bring different factions of the conference together to help them understand each other’s perspective.

“They think leadership’s stopping them from getting it, when it’s really other colleagues of theirs that won’t vote for that stuff,” Scalise said. “I said, well, don’t make it be leadership versus everybody else. Have them in the room, sitting across the table from their own colleagues.”

“You can hash out a lot of problems in an hour-and-a-half, two-hour meeting of some yelling and screaming,” Scalise said.

He doesn’t do that alone. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has also embraced those kinds of meetings, which he dubs “intense fellowship.”

“The Speaker’s got incredible patience. He and I have a great relationship. We’ve known each other for 30 years,” Scalise said. “I do think that helps.”

It’s no secret on Capitol Hill that Scalise had a complicated relationship with Johnson’s predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), even though they both publicly downplayed the tension. With fellow Louisianan Johnson at the helm, Scalise comes across as more empowered than in the past, though the majority leader declined to characterize it that way.

“I’m not going to compare leadership teams. I’m just going to talk about what we’re doing,” Scalise said. “I’ve been in majorities where we had 35-seat majorities where we didn’t get as much done.”

Scalise said leaders now try to emphasize to members that they “can do big things,” but to do so, “we’re going to have to come together and work through our differences.”

Despite Johnson’s odds-defying performance as Speaker given the slim majority and rebel culture, Republicans widely assume a midterm loss would result in the Speaker exiting from leadership altogether. Johnson recently told The Wall Street Journal he wants to stay in the post if Republicans win but demurred when asked about the possibility of Republicans being relegated to the minority.

Scalise, as the current No. 2 Republican, is an obvious contender to take the No. 1 slot if Johnson departs. But members have also speculated about whether House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) would seek the job, and they suspect House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) could make an insurgent bid — though none of them have confirmed that interest. All three leaders at various points sought to replace McCarthy as Speaker when he was ousted three years ago.

Scalise did not directly answer when asked if he would seek to be minority leader. He said people are always asking him: “Are you going to run against this guy? Are you going to run for that thing?”

“As long as I do this job well, I don’t worry about the next job, and I’ve never done that,” Scalise said. “I know some people walk in the building thinking they’re going to be president of the United States. That’s never been the approach I’ve had.”

His short-lived bid for Speaker after McCarthy’s ouster was complicated by uncertainty about whether he would be up for the job health-wise.

Scalise, 60, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, in August 2023. The cancer was described by his office as “very treatable,” but some Republicans were hesitant to hand him the high-stress, travel-intensive job just a few months later. 

He announced in February 2024 that his cancer was in “complete remission” and has traveled extensively on the campaign trail since. Still, scrutiny of high-powered lawmakers’ health issues has increased in the last few years, with instances like former President Biden being pushed to end his reelection bid after a disastrous debate performance; Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) refusing to explain his health-related absence for months; and McConnell waiting weeks to fully explain the circumstances of his hospital stay. 

But Scalise’s cancer battle, combined with his emotional and legendary return after surviving the congressional baseball shooting, also displays personal resilience that has endeared him to the rest of the GOP.

Through tough votes and turbulent internal politics in the Republican Party, Scalise has been a disciplined messenger for Republicans, seemingly incapable of putting his foot in his mouth.

“I know what I need to do,” Scalise said about his message discipline. “We have got a tough conference, a complicated conference, but you know, you got to work with everybody. But you also have to be candid with him and go, ‘OK, it’s time. Now it’s time to get on the train.’”

It helps, he said, that Trump is engaged in the process. The president will ask Scalise to give him names of members to call to get on board — and while some might see the attention from Trump as a treat, Scalise insisted: “That’s not a call you want to have.”

“He’s our best closer for a reason — because he also knows what he wants to do, and we’re all helping each other achieve the things we ran on,” Scalise said of Trump.

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