Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Thursday likened President Barack Obama to a child having the "largest political tantrum ever" because he would not kill his signature health care reform law to stop the government from being shut down.
"I want to see the end of Obamacare, the public has rejected Obamacare," King told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "You hear the discussion about the Supreme Court found it constitutional. That was before Barack Obama just unilaterally and unconstitutionally changed Obamacare at least twice."
Cuomo asked the Iowa Republican if he was "willing to collapse the credit of the United States" by not raising the nation's debt limit in order to make a point about Obamacare.
"I think all this talk about a default is a lot of false demagoguery," King insisted. "We have plenty of money coming in to service the debt."
The CNN host pointed out that economists were nearly unanimous that refusing to raise the debt limit by the October 16 deadline would hurt the stock market and cause interest rates to spike.
King, however, argued that the tea party allowed the debt limit to be raised in 2011 and was "still blamed for the effect on the markets."
"But we need to get down to the clear part of this," he continued. "The American people have rejected Obamacare. The president is willing to put all of that on the line to save his namesake legislation, which I think would go down in history as the largest political tantrum ever."
"Why is it the president putting his reputation or whatever you want to call it on the line when it is you and your faction that made the shutdown a condition of funding the government and dealing with Obamacare?" Cuomo wondered. "You did that, not the president. Shouldn't it be on you?"
"I think you have to ask the Founding Fathers why they granted the authority to Congress then," King declared. "We're at this point now where's if we allow Obamacare to be implemented then we can never recover from it."
"It will diminish the trajectory of the American destiny by turning us into a dependency society. That's what's wrong with this. And I will hold my stand here as long anybody will in this Congress."
Watch this video from CNN's New Day, broadcast Oct. 3, 2013.
