Steve King Responds to "Liar" Attacks on Ted Cruz: "Hamilton And Burr Fought to The Death Over Such Allegations"

Appearing on MSNBC directly following an hour-long combative Donald Trump press conference, Ted Cruz supporter Rep. Steve King responds to Trump's charges that Cruz is an "unstable... liar."





STEVE KING: This is just -- it is the sickening display of a school yard bully. We've never seen this in politics before. I notice that somebody tallied up in the debate Saturday night that the word "liar" was used 22 times. We don't use that word where I come from, because when you make that kind of allegation, we look back at our founding fathers, for example, and realize that Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton fought a duel to the death over such allegations, and now we have them hurled out as though making that allegation somehow makes it true and makes it stick.



I will say this. The things I heard Donald Trump say, you would never want a president of the United States speaking like that from the podium. Think of this press conference he just did. Think of the great seal of the United States of America in front of him. The president of the United States hurling those baseless accusations out, attacking people, attacking their character willy-nilly, calling them liars with no basis or substance.

STEVE KING: By the way, he's not even being held accountable by the press. You have to go to the original source of the text, run the tape and tell me what wasn't true. i don't know of a single thing that ted cruz said that wasn't objectively true and precisely stated.



When somebody calls you a liar and you turn around and say, "am not," they say "are so" and it turns into a schoolyard argument. You have to make the decision whether you want to go down in the muck with someone like that or stand above it, and with clarity, have confidence with the voters. By the way, Iowans have that clarity and donald trump is a sore loser.



He lost by more than 6,000 votes in Iowa, so now he has to give you this fury and threaten a lawsuit.



There was nothing that happened in iowa that you can point to that was unethical or untrue on the part of what Ted Cruz said or did. In fact, those statements that came out, the origin of the Carson issue came right out of carson's campaign. I went to meet Carson two days later on a Wednesday night in his hotel room. I met with the person that fed that information, and Ben Carson and I understand this. I think he should step up and say it originated with the Carson campaign, it was embellished by CNN, and all Cruz did was just transfer that message over to us. What I put out in my tweet, by the way, was objectively crew, what wouldn't have been true as if I would have said, looks like Carson is in. That wouldn't have been true...



The most important part is for the press to pin down Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. If you're going to hurl those vile allegations, then you go back to the original source and point that out and make that case. i've chased this down myself on the internet. I'm speaking with confidence hear. What Ted Cruz said about Marco Rubio's position is absolutely true.

King also responds to Cruz' feud with Sen. Marco Rubio over the DREAMers and with Ben Carson over the Iowa caucus result: