At an anti-immigration event last night, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) defended his colleague Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), saying, “The President threw the first punch.”
“A lot of us said, well, this health care bill is gonna fund illegals, and the President said, ‘Prominent politicians are lying to you.’ He said that on the floor of the House of Representatives,” King said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a President comes to the House of Representatives as a guest of the members of the House and makes a declaration like he did. I mean, the President threw the first punch.”
Wilson was “unfortunate”, he said, to get caught in a pause in the noise, like when you’re screaming to be heard in a crowd and then the crowd goes silent.
“God bless him. He said what we were thinking,” King said, adding that Wilson is “an officer and a gentleman and a patriot.”
The House voted to disapprove of Wilson’s outburst last week, in which he yelled, “You lie!” when Obama said a health care reform bill would not provide insurance to illegal immigrants.
