Press Releases

WASHINGTON — Majority Whip Tom Emmer joined Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier this evening to discuss House Republicans’ commitment to delivering on President Trump’s America First agenda in the 119th Congress. 

Whip Emmer on today’s vote for Speaker of the House:

“I think the message is from the Republican conference Bret again thanks for having me, but the message is Republicans are unified behind Donald Trump and the incoming administration and we’re ready to get to work right now on enacting the Trump agenda. Which is exactly what the American people voted for on November 5th. Were there people that wanted to be heard? Were there people who had things that they wanted our Speaker to know are important to them? Yes. That is just the way this process works, but it happened on the first ballot. And if you’ll recall, two years ago it took 15 and almost a week to get it done. Today it was one ballot. We’re one and done and we’re ready to get moving immediately.”

Whip Emmer on working with a slim House majority:

“Well, nothing is going to be easy, but Bret everybody talks about this narrow margin that we have. Does anybody remember that for the last two years we started out with 222 with a five-vote advantage which went down to a four vote and then at times was 220 and we passed things that nobody thought we could pass. Including a debt ceiling increase, including the parental bill of rights, including the strongest energy bill in the last 30 years, and a border bill that is the strongest in 20 years. We did all of that with such a narrow majority and yet nobody knows because all of it sat on Chuck Schumer’s desk. We’re going to do it again Bret. We will be able to perform. The biggest thing that we’re going to have to have to be careful of is member health and you know making sure that they can be here. Attendance is going to be a very important thing.”

“Nothing here is easy. When we had 247 members, we could not pass the strongest border bill. We did that with 222. Don’t underestimate what we can do. We just got to have the numbers here. And we have to do our job. Our job is to make sure that the members and the public know exactly what it is that Donald Trump is moving, why it is important, and how it is going to benefit their lives. We do that, and their constituents, we do that, we will be able to pass things you wouldn’t expect we could do.” 

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