Rep. Steve King (R-IA), an influential conservative who represents Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District, is warning Americans—and Iowans—that a massive amnesty for all of America’s illegal aliens may be unstoppable if Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is elected president.
“With Paul Ryan as Speaker, we have this big question about what amnesty might be not in this Congress but with the next president,” King said on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel with Breitbart News’ Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon. “I have apprehension about that.”
King says he thinks that the final battle ahead of Iowa’s caucuses in early February—something that may break out in January—just might come down to a fight between Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Right now, King said that billionaire businessman Donald Trump has the best ground game in the state.
“I have to say Trump’s right now,” King said when asked who has the best ground game, adding that his former chief of staff Chuck Laudner—Trump’s Iowa manager who helped lead former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum to an Iowa caucus victory in 2012—is doing everything he has to do.
“It’s well organized—and it’s well organized by Chuck Laudner, my former chief of staff,” King said. “I know what he can do and I’m convinced he’s doing it.”
“He will work that ground game and he will have the resources to do it, my only concern is are the Trump supporters strong enough to take that ground game and actually show up that night and do the things they need to do to turn it into a victory,” King added. “I don’t know and a lot can happen between now and then but I’m watching as Rubio’s enthusiasm and enthusiasm for him is lifting him up. And Ted Cruz has positioned himself also with a good ground game. I didn’t think so earlier, but it’s getting a lot better now. And just watching how the issues break, something else helps him too.”
It was after that that King noted that Cruz may end up benefiting from the way issues break on the national political stage—and Rubio may end up getting hurt by that. And it’s specifically the threat of an amnesty under a potential “President Rubio” and a Speaker Ryan.
“While Paul Ryan wasn’t for the Gang of Eight, he was one of those writing the Gang of Seven bill in the House,” King told Bannon.
It’s a path to a legal status, it’s a type of amnesty, and I’ll be opposing any type of amnesty. So I think we will be locking horns not until the next president, and I think it will be very difficult to keep this type of amnesty from flowing over us if we have Speaker Ryan, Minority Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. If you put an amnesty president on top of that, it’s going to be almost impossible to block amnesty again. So I think it’s really important we have a president who’s real strong on this and when I look across the list of 15, I think we’ve got Donald Trump and Ted Cruz—Rick Santorum would be real good, but his numbers are so far down. So, that all I think spells well for Cruz if Trump isn’t able to maintain the altitude that he has now.
Earlier in the interview, King explained that the final battle in Iowa may come down to Cruz versus Rubio.
“There’s no doubt the intensity is being turned up,” King said.
Of the recent event last Friday night at Northwestern College in Orange City—which King called the “epicenter” of Northwestern Iowa politics—King said the “energy was around Marco Rubio and that might be because he hadn’t been in that area for some time, but the energy was around him.”
“Chris Christie has the support of the core of the major donors and establishment people in the state,” King added. “And of course Jeb has lost some ground. But they’re the three establishment candidates and of them, Rubio is the most likely to emerge from them.”
On the conservative side, King predicted Cruz may emerge as the victor—and that would set up a showdown between Cruz and Rubio.
“Then you have to set Trump and Carson kind of off on the side—they’re unpredictable entities—I don’t know what moves them or doesn’t move them, but I will say Trump is sort of flattening out,” King said.
And Carson’s also starting to flatten out. That is my gut feeling. So then, out of the constitutional conservatives, I think people will look at the list of them—and there are good ones—along the way and I got to hunt pheasants with a bunch of them on Saturday and Sunday. But I think Ted Cruz is in the best position there to be the constitutional conservative who emerges. Let’s just say if Trump and Carson drift away and down, I think you end up with a contest in Iowa between Rubio and Cruz. That may be how it is in January, but there’s a long way to go.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.