LaTourette: Republicans 'got whooped' on fiscal cliff, and 'chuckleheads' blocked Sandy relief too

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) on Wednesday said that Republicans had gotten "whooped" by President Barack Obama in fiscal cliff negotiations and that the "chuckleheads" in his party even refused to pass a relief package for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

"It's that Hobson's choice that if there was no deal, taxes would have gone up on every American," LaTourette explained to CBS News. "And the Speaker's objective was always to spare as many people in the country as we could from a tax increase, but at the end of the day, we got whooped."

The congressman also blasted his own party for a last-minute reversal that pulled the plug on relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

"I called them chuckleheads and I'll call them chuckleheads again," he explained. "The same chuckleheads who jettisoned Plan B on this tax discussion a week ago said, 'You know what? The $60 billion -- or 27 and 33 -- isn't paid for and because it's not paid for, we're not going to do anything about it.'"

"You know, I guess they don't have TVs in their homes and they haven't seen the suffering on Staten Island and the coast of New Jersey. It just doesn't make any sense to me. An emergency is an emergency. These are Americans who are suffering."

"This is another example of people just not getting it," LaTourette concluded.

Watch this video from CBS' This Morning, broadcast Jan. 2, 2012.