Rep. Peter King Calls Rep. Anthony Weiner a Liar, Then Pushed Him Off the Jungle Gym

Yesterday, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) told Imus that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) was to blame for not amassing enough Republican votes last week to pass a health care bill for 9/11 first responders. Today, King gave the I-Man his side of the story.

King, an original co-sponsor of the bill, has been working on it for five years with Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler; was one of 12 Republicans in the House to vote for it; and believes it is a vital piece of legislation.

“I made this a bipartisan issue,” he pointed out. “I was never going to make this a Republican or Democratic issue.”

After years in committee, the bill was finally ready to go to the House floor for debate, as bills normally do. “And then ten days or two weeks ago, we heard for the first time that the Democrats were going to ask for a two-thirds vote, rather than a majority,” King explained. “Everyone involved in the talks knew that it could not get 290 votes.”

Weiner told a different story yesterday; according to him, King was supposed to deliver the 40-50 additional Republican votes needed for a two-thirds passage. Not surprisingly to members of the House, the bill did not pass when put to a vote last week.  

“The reason they wanted to go the two-thirds vote is they were afraid the Republicans might offer an amendment, or they might make a motion to recommit to change the bill,” said King.

Mostly, Democrats were nervous that Republicans would make a motion to exclude illegal immigrants from coverage in the bill, King said, which would have forced them to take a tough vote in an election year, something they did not want to do.

As for Weiner’s claims that the two-thirds procedure was used to expedite the process, King said, “It’s totally untrue. If we had gone the other route, the route of a simple majority, the entire debate would have been limited to four or five hours.”

For his part, King said he had urged his fellow Republicans to vote for the bill, but some had philosophical objections and others were nervous about committing so much money in advance, creating an opportunity for fraud. Regardless, King has never seen such showmanship in his 18 years in Congress as Weiner’s outburst on the floor last week.

“His conduct from beginning to end on this was shameful,” King said, adding, “I never heard of having a bill you believe in and not letting it pass. It’s disgraceful.”

Imus, however, was torn between King and Weiner. “You both seem like decent guys,” said Imus. “But somebody’s lying here.”

And King, predictably, pointed at Weiner. “He was never even a major player in this whole bill to begin with,” King said, and went on and on and on until Imus had to go.

“I just can’t take it anymore,” he told his guest. “My neck hurts.”

-Julie Kanfer