(CNN) Matthew Whitaker, the new acting attorney general, has said that states have the right to nullify federal law, but that they need the political courage to do so.

Whitaker, whom President Donald Trump announced as acting attorney general on Wednesday after he fired Jeff Sessions, made the comments during a failed 2014 run for the Republican Senate nomination in Iowa.

"As a principle, it has been turned down by the courts and our federal government has not recognized it," Whitaker said while taking questions during a September 2013 campaign speech . "Now we need to remember that the states set up the federal government and not vice versa. And so the question is, do we have the political courage in the state of Iowa or some other state to nullify Obamacare and pay the consequences for that?"

"The federal government's done a very good job about tying goodies to our compliance with federal programs, whether it's the Department of Education, whether it's Obamacare with its generous Medicare and Medicaid dollars and the like," he added. "But do I believe in nullification? I think our founding fathers believed in nullification. There's no doubt about that."

Whitaker added he didn't think states had the "political courage to nullify Obamacare."

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