Sen. Mike Lee went on Fox News to respond to criticism from fellow Republican Rep. Peter King and to discuss whether President Obama will negotiate to end the shutdown.
King said Lee’s shutdown tactics to stop Obamacare are “doomed to fail.” Lee responded that King was “just plain wrong.”
“He’s mistaken,” Lee said of King. “I respectfully, but forcefully disagree with Representative King. He’s just plain wrong. This is an important strategy. This is something we have to do to protect the American people.” At the same time, Lee said he wanted to “applaud” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor(R-VA) for “protecting the people from the harmful effects of Obamacare.”
Turning the narrative around on King, he called the Democratic strategy, which he described as “unless you fund every part of government including Obamacare, we’ll not let you fund anything” as “not defensible” and “crazy.”
Lee called Obama’s apparent willingness to negotiate a “welcome change,” but added, “So far, what he has been telling us is you do it exactly my way or we’ll not do it at all. He can’t do that. He’s not a dictator, he’s not a despot.”
