Earlier today, majority whip Steve Scalise returned to the House Chamber for the First Time Since he was shot in june at a congressional baseball practice. He thanked the capitol police, his doctors and family as he recalled the day of the shooting. Well show you those comments now. The speaker the chair wishes to mark the return to the chamber of our dear friend and colleague from louisiana, mr. Steve scalise. Our prayers have been answered. His bravery and his familys strength have been such an inspiration to this house and to the people it serves. America is grateful for this moment. He chair now proudly asks, for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana seek recognition . Mr. Scalise to speak out of rder, mr. Speaker. The speaker the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. Mr. Scalise thank you, mr. Speaker. You have no idea how great this feels to be back here at work in the peoples house. As you can imagine these last 3 1 2 months have been pretty challenging times for me and my family. But if you look at the outpouring of love, of warmth, of prayer, my gosh, jennifer and i have been overwhelmed with all of that outpouring. Us the strength to get through all of this and to get to this point today. T starts us the strength with. When i was laying out on that ball field, the first thing i did once i was down and couldnt move anymore is i just started to pray. And ill tell you it gave me an unbelievable sense of calm knowing that at that point it was in gods hands. But i prayed for very specific things. I will tell you pretty much every one of those prayers was answered. And they were some pretty allenging chairs i was putting in gods hands. He really did deliver for me and my family and it just gives you that renewed faith and understanding that the power of prayer is something that you just cannot underestimate. So im definitely a living example that miracles really do happen. The first place i want to go to thank true angels along the way starts with the United States apitol police. When i was elected majority whip as you know the elected leadership has a security detail. If anybody ever wondered why were assigned security detail, i surely found out that day. Let me tell you, i want to specifically mention crystal griner and david bailey. Crystal and david were assigned to my security detail that morning, and day in and day out they are part of our family. Jennifer and i truly treat them as part of our family because they are with us everywhere they go. On that day, june 14, they came 6 30 in the morning. We arrived at the baseball field just to play and practice for a game of charity baseball. Nobody would have suspected what ensued. Yet as soon as those shots were fired ill tell you, when i was laying on the ground, one of the things i prayed for is that david and crystal would be successful in carrying out their duties. And both david and crystal are incredibly well trained, incredibly professional. But when i was laying there not long after the first couple of a s were fired, coy hear different caliber weapon and that told me that they had immediately engaged the shooter. Let me tell you, if they didnt act so quickly, even after being shot a different caliber weapon and that told me that they had both continued to engage the shooter and ultimately got him down, which not only saved my life, but saved the life of a lot of other people that are here in this chamber today. Crystal couldnt be with us today, but david bailey is with us. David, you are my hero. You saved my life. Thank you so much. I also thank owe thanks to loot of people on the field with me. Right after the shooter was down a lot of my colleagues came and ran to come check on me. And one i want to mention in particular is one of those things that jennifer and i call the Little Miracles that happened that day and throughout the next few months of our recovery. Heaped to have Brad Wenstrup on the field that day, and he was one of the first to come to my side. As you know brads not only a doctor, but hes a decorated army ranger who served in combat. One of his roles and missions to take care of people that were wounded before they went off on the helicopter to go get prepared. Who would have thought that god would have to take care of peop were wounded before they went off put brad out there on the field with me because the tourniquet he applied, many will tell you, saved my life so i could actually make it to the hospital in time with alt blood loss. Rad, where are you at . Once i arrived at med star hospital, i was a little bit out of it at that point, but luckily i ended up in the trusted hands of dr. Jack sava and his great team over at med star. They gave me a Second Chance at life. And through many, many surgeries where my life was truly in the balance a few of those, they did a wonderful job at making sure that i was well taken care of and ultimately made it through that point so i could get to dr. Golden and his team who actually put me back together again, which was quite a task, to the point where im actually able to relearn how to walk again. Dr. Sava, dr. Golden, thank you for being here. Thanks for your teams work. Above all else, i want to thank y lovely wife, jennifer. Those of you who know her know how strong jennifer is. Shes an incredibly warm and loving wife. And shes an incredible mother to our children. Somehow through the late nights and the surgeries and all the other things, she managed to hold our family together. To make sure that harris and madison were cared for as well. To this day shes not only by my side but serving as a great other. m lucky to have been challenge in time for my family, the thing that really overwhelmed us from the start was the outpouring of love and warmth and prayers from southeast louisiana, thetrict i represent. We saw the district i represent. We saw blood drives at st. Katherine. Prayer groups at First United Methodist Church at slidell. But what we also saw were prayer groups and well wishes being given from people we never met before throughout all your districts. You shared it with me. And it was one of those things that was hard for us to completely comprehend that you had people from all walks of life that had never met me before and yet they saw what had happened. And they just wanted to offer prayers. Let me tell you, that each and every one of you, please convey it to your constituents, i sure convey it to mine back home, that warmth and love gave us just incredible strength that you cant imagine during some really, really difficult times. So that is one more example of the power of prayer. Something else i saw firsthand wasnt a surprise to me, but it was the outpouring of love from you, my colleagues. Both republican and democrat. Right after the shooting we on the ticing republican side and the democrats were practicing, too. And my colleague and friend and sometimes archrival in baseball from back home in new orleans, unfortunately, the star of the game too many on the republican side and the democrats were practicing, time richmond somehow figured out which hospital i was sent to and got there probably the first person there on the scene in his baseball uniform to check on me. So many others of you, again both republican and democrat, reached out in ways that i express the gratitude and how much it means to me, jennifer, and our whole family. It really does show the warm side express the gratitude and people get to see. I want to thank each and every one of you for that. You dont know how much it meant to me. When i come back into this chamber here today, just seeing the faces of all of you, it just means more to me than you can imagine. Love and all of that support. Love and support. A lot of people ask did this event change you . And i think those of you who know me know im an optimistic person. Aim just a fun loving person. Im from south louisiana. We believe you work hard and you play hard. Is an event like this really going to change that . The first thing i can tell you is, yes, it changed me, but not in the ways you might think. Its only strengthened my faith in god and its really crystallized what shows up as the goodness in people. I got to see that goodness in people. So while some people might focus on a tragic event and all i remember are the thousands of acts of kindness and love and warmth that came out of this, and kept me going through all of it. Again, just reemphasize just how wonderful most people are and how much compassion there is out there. Finally, i want to talk about something that i guess hit me and probably struck me more than anything that i was not expecting. That was the outpouring of love and support from World Leaders. People i have met and have known, Benjamin Netanyahu and i incredible conversations from the hospital. Theresa may reached out. The king abdul of jordan so many of us have met reached out. But other World Leaders also in conversations from the hospital. Theresa may reached out. People i had never met before. And that touched me in a different way. Because each and every one of us we come here and we fight for the things we believe in. I have passionate beliefs for some reason some of you dont agree with all of those. But its so important that we come up here. Were the peoples house. This is the place where these ideas are supposed to be debated. And we fight through those issues. But ultimately we come together on whatever the board shows is 218. If you can put the majority together, thats what rules the day. Its so important that as were having those political battles, we dont make them personal. Because one of the things i saw, i guess this is the thing that really kept coming back to me as i tried to make sense of all this and comprehend the outpouring of love that i saw, it kept coming back to those World Leaders. Why would leaders from around the world that i never met before reach out and say, steve, we hope you can get back to work. We hope you can come through this. What it says is, sure, they cared about my wellbeing. But more than that they saw this as an attack on all of us. They saw this as an attack on the institution of the United States congress and our government. And they really count on us to be successful. Look, we all know the United States is the leader of the free world. Its something that we frankly had the honor as a country to hold as a distinction for generations. And yet when you look at that title, what it really means is that there are people all around the world that want freedom, maybe that have freedom, but they know the United States being strong is critical to the rest of the world having the opportunity for freedom. But thats why im so excited to be back because as were fighting through the issues of the day, lets just keep in mind that we rise above the challenges of the day and understand that its not just us and our constituents and the country, the United States, thats counting on us being successful. People all around the world that believe in freedom are counting on us as well and we will deliver for them. Thats why i am so honored to to be back here in the house serving with you. God bless each and every one of you. Got bless the United States of america. Mr. Scalise mr. Speaker, with that, i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker for what purpose oes the minority leader seek recognition . Ms. Pelosi i thank god for the return of our colleague Steve Scalise and having to do so in such a strong way. Thank god our prayers are answered. I take great pride in steve because we are italianamericans and that is the source of his strength and how proud we are of jennifer, harrison