Donald Trump tells Fox News that Steve Scalise is too sick to serve as House speaker – NOLA.com
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Aug. 24.
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Aug. 24.
Former President Donald Trump has waded back into the Republican Party’s chaotic effort to pick a new House speaker, telling Fox News that he believes Rep. Steve Scalise’s recent cancer diagnosis makes him unfit for the job.
UPDATE: Steve Scalise drops bid to become next speaker of the House
“The problem, you know, Steve is a man that is in serious trouble from the standpoint of his cancer,” Trump told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade, according to a transcript of the interview. “I mean, he’s got to get better for himself. I’m not talking about even country now. I’m saying got to get better. And this is tremendous stress. … And, you know, most importantly, I want Steve to get well, I just don’t know how you can do the job when you have. That’s a serious problem.”
Scalise has said his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, is “very treatable” and that he’s already doing better than his doctors expected.
In people with multiple myeloma, the production of plasma cells in the bone marrow goes haywire. The abnormal plasma cells begin to crowd out all the other cells inside the bone, said Dr. Augusto Ochoa, deputy director of the LSU Health-LCMC Cancer Center. Without those other cells, patients develop anemia, which causes fatigue, and problems with blood clotting. On an X-ray, tiny holes in the bone, eaten away by enzymes the overactive plasma produces, are a tell-tale sign of the cancer.
But new treatments and protocols have helped patients live relatively normal lives, even while in treatment, physicians said.
“You start having a remission right away, depending on how your multiple myeloma reacts,” said Ochoa.
Scalise has not specified what stage of the disease he is in but has indicated it was caught early.
“The fact that he continues to be involved in all his activities, probably says yes, he’s probably responding well,” said Ochoa.
In his Fox interview, Trump said that Scalise is going through “very, very serious cancer therapy,” and that the congressman is still suffering “tremendous aftereffects” from the 2017 shooting that nearly killed him.
Trump last week endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the combative chair of the House Judiciary Committee, over Scalise, of Jefferson.
Trump’s comments about Scalise’s condition followed similar remarks from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, on Wednesday.
“I like Steve Scalise, and I like him so much that I want to see him defeat cancer more than sacrifice his health in the most difficult position in Congress,” Greene wrote on Twitter. “We need a Speaker who is able to put their full efforts into defeating the communist democrats and save America.”
Scalise, the House majority leader, narrowly beat Jordan on Wednesday in a closed-door session of Republicans, making him the party’s presumptive nominee for the speakership.
But Scalise still needs a majority of the full House, or 217 votes — 104 more than he got in the closed-door session, when 99 Republicans backed Jordan. He can only afford to have four Republicans oppose him, and so far, more than a dozen have said they won’t vote for him. They include Greene, who is backing Jordan.
Scalise’s ongoing struggle for votes, and Trump’s recent comments, could serve to keep Jordan’s hopes alive, though Jordan has said he’ll back Scalise.
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