Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Saturday stopped short of questioning President Obama’s citizenship, but suggested that he wasn’t raised in a truly American way.
“His vision of America isn’t like our vision of America. That we know,” King said about Obama at an immigration rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, according to Buzzfeed.
“Now I don’t assert where he was born, I will just tell you that we are all certain that he was not raised with an American experience,” King continued. “So these things that beat in our hearts when we hear the National Anthem and when we say the Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t beat the same for him.”
The congressman then referenced an image of Obama in 2007 with his arms down during the National Anthem.
“If you remember when he was a candidate for president he was standing at the front of a row of Democrat candidates for president down at Tom Harkin’s steak fry. The rest of them, when they played the National Anthem, had their hand over their heart. But Barack Obama was standing with arms down his side dangling — while the National Anthem was being played,” King said. “Now, what was that about, was it an act of defiance? I didn’t think so. Some thought so.”
King has questioned just how American Obama is before. In 2012, he suggested that Obama’s parents could have announced his birth by telegram from Kenya.
