I love it when they eat their own
Last edited Sun Sep 22, 2013, 11:35 AM - Edit history (1)
Peter King: Ted Cruz 'is a fraud'
Posted by
CNN's Paul Courson
Washington (CNN) - The government shutdown showdown is getting ugly.
Republican Rep. Peter King said Friday that his Republican colleague in the Senate, Ted Cruz, "is a fraud" who will "no longer have any influence in the Republican Party" after the House votes on a measure that could potentially lead to a government shutdown.
King made his comments while on his way to a Republican meeting, shortly before the House was set to begin debating, then voting on the bill. The legislation provides funds for the government to stay afloat past the end of the fiscal year on September 30, but only if money for Obamacare is cut out.
Ted Cruz: Obamacare fight 'just beginning'
The idea to tie the president's health care law to the government funding bill was aggressively pushed by Cruz and other Senate conservatives, including Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Mike Lee, this summer.
The House is expected to pass the bill, which will then go to the Democratic-controlled Senate where the Obamacare amendment will likely be killed. The bill would then be sent back to the House, which would have to decide whether to pass it and keep the government running, or defeat it and possibly see a government shutdown.
King, who's been strongly opposed to the bill, has essentially compared the strategy to a suicide mission.
Read: Rep. King on defund plan: ‘Custer, Kamikaze’
"I hope people will get the message this guy is bad for the party," King said Friday, talking about Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential candidate. King is also a potential White House contender, as he has said he's thinking about running for president.
Asked if the House vote was more of a message to conservatives than to Obama, King said the vote is a signal that the GOP has "to take more realistic and practical approaches."
The congressman has said before that he can start ignoring the senator from Texas after the vote. He reiterated Friday he hopes that's still the case.
"We can't be going off on these false missions that Ted Cruz wants us to go on. The issues are too important. They're too serious, they require real conservative solutions, not cheap headline-hunting schemes," he said.
Read: Cruz tries to make amends with angry conservatives
Cruz angered House conservatives earlier this week when he admitted in a statement that he doubts the Senate has enough votes to pass a government funding measure that also defunds Obamacare. He has nonetheless vowed to keep fighting in the Senate to generate support for the measure.
But with some Senate Republicans already saying they won't support Cruz in the effort, the chances of him succeeding so far appear unlikely.
– CNN's Ashley Killough and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/20/peter-king-ted-cruz-is-a-fraud/
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