Joe Scarborough: “let me just say, I have always respected the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay) because he shoots it straight, and what he…”

“let me just say, I have always respected the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay) because he shoots it straight, and what he told us during his 4 minutes was what this is really about, and this provision really is about punishing Florida. It is an act of revenge because of what happened last week. Regarding a couple of the statements of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), he once again said it is way out in the Gulf of Mexico. It is not. It is 17 miles. Another thing, the gentleman from Alabama (Chairman Callahan) is offended because he said this is a House of courtesy, that he should have been notified because it is a House of courtesy. Right after that, he accused me personally of demagoguery and hypocrisy and of intentionally misleading Members. I did not take his words down because he loves the northwest Florida environment so much. Also, I had the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) to come up soon afterwards and try to tone things down, as I hope we can do. Unfortunately, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) then went on and compared my district to Communist China, but we will talk about that at another day. I hope we can tone this down, and I hope we can understand what this really is all about. It is about punishing the State of Florida because over 200, almost 250 people, in this Chamber voted to protect our shoreline.”