King said his colleagues 'put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans.' King: Halt donations to House GOP

New York Republican Rep. Peter King went to war with his Republican colleagues on Wednesday after leaders spiked a Hurricane Sandy relief bill, calling on New Yorkers to stop all donations to GOP House members.

“These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they’re out raising millions of dollars,” King said on Fox News. “They’re in New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers. I’m saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to Congressional Republicans is out of their minds. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It was an absolute disgrace.”


( PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy)

King also said he was ready to buck Republican leaders on every issue until the Sandy aid is approved.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m on my own,” King said. “They’re going to have to go a long way to get my vote on anything.”

( Also on POLITICO: House pulls plug on Sandy aid bill)

In an interview with POLITICO, King placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of House Speaker John Boehner.

“Throughout this whole deal Cantor was totally straight with us,” King said, blaming Boehner.

He’s is not the only Republican upset about the issue: New Jersey Gov. Christie “is not a happy guy right now,” King said, saying he’s spoken to Christie last night and this morning and Cuomo repeatedly.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that the House will vote in two phases to provide billions in relief to Hurricane Sandy victims. On Friday it will vote on a measure “to direct resources to the National Flood Insurance Program;” then on Jan. 15 it will take up “the remaining supplemental request” for Sandy victims.

“We cannot be taken for granted anymore,” King said, calling this the “first time in recent memory that you have a natural disaster and Congress 90 days later has done nothing. Every dollar was accounted for.”

King also appeared on MSNBC and CNN before noon on Wednesday, ripping Republican leaders on each station. (On MSNBC, King made it clear he wasn’t threatening to leave the Republican party.)

New Jersey and New York lawmakers were preparing a strategy for a Tuesday night vote on a $60 billion aid package that had already passed the Senate. But House leaders abruptly changed their mind, meaning the package will likely die with the close of the 112th Congress on Thursday. The House Appropriations Committee had prepared a $27 billion relief package.

King implied that package was insufficient, saying it consisted of “money they were required to give us anyway.” And he implied GOP intrasigence was causing the death of the party in New York and throughout the northeast.

“All we’re saying is treat us the same everybody else has been treated,” King said. “And why the Republican party has this bias against New York, bias against New Jersey, bias against the northeast? They wonder why they’re becoming a minority party? Why we’ll be the party of the permanent minority? What they did last night was so immoral, so disgraceful, so irresponsible. We’re supposed to be the party of family values, and you have families starving, families suffering, families spread all over living in substandard housing. This was a disgrace.”

King was joined in his condemnation by Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, who slammed his Republican colleagues, calling lawmakers who opposed the relief “chuckleheads.” But House Oversight and Government Reform Chair Darrell Issa defended the move, arguing the measure was filled with pork.

“Your two senators packed this with pork,” Issa said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends,” which airs from New York City, referring to Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. “They had the opportunity to have a $27 [billion] to $30 billion dollar legit relief package, packed it with pork, then dared us not to vote on it.”

“The Senate didn’t do their job,” he added. “They sent us a bunch of pork and then left town, and that was just wrong. And the speaker has the support of the majority of Republicans that if we’re going to provide relief, we can’t allow it to be doubled with unrelated pork no matter where the relief is. And the relief will come early next year but it will come at the $27 billion level or I don’t expect to be voting for it.”

Some of the bill’s spending has little connection to Sandy. There’s $150 million in aid for fisheries in Alaska, which is more than 3,300 miles away; $2 million for a new roof for the Smithsonian and $8 million for equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments.

Gillibrand accused both Issa and House Speaker John Boehner of lacking “the dignity and guts” to tell New Yorkers the aid they need is pork.

“This is a sad and cruel joke,” she said in a statement. “House leadership insulted all New Yorkers last night and now Rep. Issa is at it again. He should come to Staten Island and tell families trying to rebuild their businesses that this money is pork. He should come to the Rockaways and tell families trying to rebuild their homes that this money is pork. But neither Speaker Boehner or Rep. Issa have the dignity nor the guts to do it. As Republicans have said, what happened last night was indefensible and shameful.”

Schumer similarily challenged Issa to meet with New Yorkers and disputed the Californian’s characterization of spending as “pork,” arguing most of the extraneous spending had been stripped from the House version of the bill.

“What Darrell Issa is calling pork is a mainstay of relief,” Schumer said at a press conference Wednesday in New York, pointing to direct aid to homeowners and funding for Army Corps of Engineers projects as examples.

Schumer also took aim at Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, for arguing the relief funds weren’t immediately needed. Schumer said homeowners and small business need aid guaranteed before banks will lend them funds necessary for rebuilding.

“Harold Rogers said there was no pressing need for the aid,” Schumer said. “And that is infuriating.”

Meanwhile, LaTourette ripped Republicans for opposing the Sandy aid.

“I called them chuckleheads and I’ll call them chuckleheads again,” LaTourette said on CBS’s “This Morning.” “The same chuckleheads who jettisoned Plan B on this tax discussion a week ago said this $60 billion isn’t paid for and because it’s not paid for, we’re not going to do anything about it. 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. That doesn’t make any sense to me. An emergency is an emergency. These are Americans who are suffering. We should have had the vote.”

But LaTourette, a retiring member and close ally of House Speaker John Boehner, said the speaker told him the House would find a way to help Sandy victims.

“You know, I talked to the speaker in the cloakroom at 11 o’clock last night,” LaTourette said. “He says he’s going to take care of it. I hope he does because this is another example of people just not getting it.”

The decision to kill the package has drawn scorn from New York and New Jersey. The cover of Wednesday’s New York Daily News dubbed Boehner and Cantor “Fiscal Stiffs.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, issued a joint statement condemning the bill’s death.

“With all that New York and New Jersey and our millions of residents and small businesses have suffered and endured, this continued inaction and indifference by the House of Representatives is inexcusable,” Christie and Cuomo said.

“It has now been 66 days since Hurricane Sandy hit and 27 days since President Obama put forth a responsible aid proposal that passed with a bipartisan vote in the Senate while the House has failed to even bring it to the floor. This failure to come to the aid of Americans following a severe and devastating natural disaster is unprecedented. The fact that days continue to go by while people suffer, families are out of their homes, and men and women remain jobless and struggling during these harsh winter months is a dereliction of duty. When American citizens are in need we come to their aid. That tradition was abandoned in the House last night. The people of our states can no long afford to wait while politicians in Washington play games.”

Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) slammed the House GOP on CNN’s “Starting Point,” calling the decision “indefensible.”

“Just when we avoided one cliff, the House Republicans threw us over another one,” Israel said. “We rushed aid to Kabul and Baghdad when they had damage, but when it comes to aid to New York and New Jersey, the House Republican leadership decided we weren’t worth it. It is indefensible.”

Katie Glueck and Maggie Haberman contributed to this report.