Iowa Rep. [crscore]Steve King[/crscore] told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] earned his endorsement because the Republican presidential candidate is a “full-spectrum constitutional conservative.”

“I have fought in the trenches with Ted Cruz, and I know that he checks all the boxes as a full-spectrum constitutional conservative,” Kin said Tuesday. “I know what he believes, and I know why he believes that.”

“I can’t track Donald Trump in that same fashion, although he rings a lot of bells for a lot of people.” (VIDEO: Limbaugh: Ted Cruz Is ‘Inarguably Thoroughbred Conservative’)

Host Joe Scarborough followed up and asked King if he believes Trump is a “constitutional conservative.”

“Not in the same fashion,” King replied, because Trump doesn’t have “those kind of underpinnings that tell me it’s rooted in our constitutional values.”

The Iowa congressman said he disagrees with Trump’s support for the Supreme Court’s Kelo vs. City of New London decision, which reaffirmed the government’s ability to use eminent domain to take property from one private owner and give it to another private owner for the furtherance of economic development.

King said, “If you go back to the Constitution, you root your values in that, and then you build that belief system from there. I’m just very confident in Cruz.”

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