Rep. Steve King has staked out turf on the far right of the House Republican caucus. But he’s got more competition there, which may explain the relatively paltry audience that came to hear him in a cavernous CPAC ballroom.
King chastised his GOP colleagues, saying that if they had pulled out all the stops they could have killed “Obamacare” in the last Congress in spite of Nancy Pelosi’s “iron fist.” King called the 87 Republican freshman “God’s gift to America.”
But his speech was mostly a loving message about King himself, with him bragging about his work as a state legislator and congressman, and noting with emotion-laden pride that his granddaughter was named “Reagan” and had no chance of growing up to be a Democrat.
He took credit for stopping immigration reform (“amnesty”) in the last Congress and said that if anyone brings it up in the new Congress they should have a scarlet letter A pinned to them. King, who has infamously compared illegal immigrants to cattle, said today that most of them are criminals. He called for a wall within two fences to be built along the entire border with Mexico.
King bragged that he was the first to ask for legislation to repeal health care reform and demanded that his GOP colleagues insert language into the continuing resolution to prevent the federal government from spending any money to start implementing reform. Otherwise, he said President Obama will send the roots of that “malignant tumor” as deep as he can.
King’s speech touted the seemingly mandatory evocation of “American exceptionalism,” though he had one small critique of the Bill of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms, he said, should have been the First Amendment.
