New York Rep. Pete King said Tuesday he'd formally endorse John Kasich for the GOP presidential nomination if he thought he had a viable chance of winning, but stressed strongly, once again, that he will never endorse Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
"I'm not endorsing Ted Cruz, in case anyone is confused," the Republican lawmaker said, laughing after MSNBC's
"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough teased him about being Cruz's campaign manager in Nassau County, New York.
"I hate Ted Cruz. I think I'll take cyanide if he ever got the nomination."
And later in the interview, King told the show that he didn't even want Cruz's name mentioned in connection with his own.
"You even put my name in the same sentence as the same sentence as Ted Cruz, I'm getting heartburn," he told the program.
King said he's already cast an absentee ballot for Kasich, but he's not endorsing the Ohio governor, or for that matter, front-runner Donald Trump.
"I voted to send a message," King told the program, and he thinks Trump will "win big" in New York, but thinks the real estate billionaire needs to change many things about his campaign if he expects to win the White House.
"If I thought Kasich had a viable chance, I would endorse him," King said. "I want to keep my powder dry because this may go to the convention."
The likelihood is, though that Trump will be nominated, but King said if Trump wants Republicans' support "he has to get substance and really learn what he's talking about. He can't be talking about off the top of his head and making reckless charges."
This means on foreign policy, Trump "has to understand what is happening in the Middle East," said King. "He can't say he's going to bomb the crap out of ISIS. He can't just say he would allow South Korea and Japan to have nuclear weapons."
And when it comes to domestic policy, Trump can't say he will replace Obamacare with a "'terrific plan,'" but "he has to show what he'd going to do with it," said King.
"And stop with the attacks on Bush's policy. You have to get beyond that and show what the differences are. What he would have done. What he's going to do in the future."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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