Peter King Calls Ted Cruz ‘A Fraud’

Rep. Peter King (N-NY) believes Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a fraud, and he hopes Friday’s house vote defund “Obamacare” and keep the government running will expose the Senator as such.

King added that he hopes Cruz will “no longer have any influence in the Republican Party.” Cruz is backed by the Tea Party and spent much of the summer asking for support in his plan to defund the Affordable Care Act (commonly called Obamacare).

NBC News reports that Cruz hopes fellow Republicans will hold out on funding the government unless the ACA is defunded at the same time.

The Senator’s summer campaign helped him build a national profile among conservatives opposed to President Barack Obama’s historic healthcare legislation.

Before the bill passed by a partisan vote of 230-189, King told reporters:

“Today’s vote is definitely a signal that we have to take a more realistic and practical approaches, that we can’t be going off on these false missions that Ted Cruz wants us to go on.”

CNN notes that Cruz and other Senate conservatives, like Marco Rubio and Mike Lee, also pushed the agenda of funding the government, only if the Affordable Care Act is defunded.

While the House was able to pass the bill, it is unlikely to pass in the Democratically controlled Senate. Instead, the Senate will likely pass the bill without the ACA measure and send it back to the House. From there, the legislative body will have to decide whether it will pass the bill and keep the government running, or risk a government shutdown and defeat it.

For his part, Rep. King has strongly opposed the bill, comparing his fellow congressmen’s strategy as a suicide mission. King added that the House vote is a signal that the GOP should “take more realistic and practical approaches.” That includes no longer listening to Ted Cruz.

Cruz admitted last week that he doubts the Senate has enough votes to pass the measure he pressed for all summer. The comments angered House conservatives. The statement also caused some Senate Republicans to say they will not follow Cruz in the effort to defund Obamacare.

[Image by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons]