House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Friday doctors believe his cancer treatment is going “phenomenally well” and he’s healthy enough to serve as speaker.
“If the doctors didn’t sign off, I wouldn’t be doing this,” he said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “They say you’re ready to go back in the fight. Look, I’ve been through tougher fights.”
Scalise said he’d spoken to former President Donald Trump, who announced late Thursday his endorsement of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the race. But the Louisiana Republican said he had a “strong base of support” that he would continue to grow.
“It’s a lot of one on one conversations over the last few days I’ve been having with my colleagues and a lot of introspection about how we get things back on track,” he said. “The problems that we have internally, they don’t go away with a new speaker. But the real question the members have is how do we get things back on track.”
He suggested he thought the race could be resolved next Wednesday within the GOP conference: “We’ve got to get our internal house back in order — we’re going to do that. We’re going to do that Wednesday.”
Scalise also acknowledged the lingering anger among many Republicans for how the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy played out this week: “There was anger. There was a lot of frustration. There still is, and we’ve got to work through that.”
