“I see people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and,” Rep. Peter King recently told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, and “I don’t want the Republican Party going in that direction.”
“Whether it’s me or someone else, I want to do all that I can to make sure that what I call the realistic foreign policy wing and national security wing of the Republican Party does not give into the isolationists.”
It is notable that King places Paul and Cruz in the same “isolationist” group: Cruz has sometimes criticized the notion that the United States should police the world, and at other times seemed sympathetic to interventionism. It is clear that King, the consummate establishment Republican, identifies Cruz as a non-interventionist enemy.
“We’ll see what happens,” Blitzer replied. “And if you do get the Republican nomination, Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, I’m ready to volunteer to moderate a debate between the two of you.”
Paul has been the primary target of King’s hostility in recent weeks. King has said that Paul represents “an isolationist wing from the 1930s” and expressed indignation that Paul would complain “about President Obama listening to his cell phone conversations.”
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