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Rep. Peter King: Relief Package Offers a “New Chapter”

Congress seems to have reached a compromise on a new relief package.  But on Capitol Hill, nothing is certain until the ink is dry.

Representative Peter King joined The Cats Roundtable on the eve of the Sunday vote on the new relief package to say he hoped this vote would “build a new chapter,” and deliver to Americans who needed assistance.

“It looks positive that there is going to be a deal,” King reported to The Cats Roundtable on Sunday, adding the relief package “should have been done a long time ago,” but had been delayed due to differences he believed were “never that great that they couldn’t be resolved with compromise.”

That new chapter King hopes for includes $600 direct payments for Americans, a pandemic unemployment bonus of $300 a week, and urgently needed money for businesses to pay rent and workers as the country faces a winter surge in cases.

King said he intends to vote for the relief package “the sooner the better,” scorning lawmakers who debated the details to “score cheap political points” and “forget too often” the everyday Americans that suffer as a result.

The New York Representative took particular aim at Nancy Pelosi, who he felt delayed a larger relief aid proposed by Republicans because it would be a good reflection on Trump in the lead up to the 2020 election.

King also accused Speaker Pelosi of knowing of California Representative Eric Swalwell’s ties to Chinese intelligence agents when she appointed Swalwell to the House Intelligence Committee, which King called “the most sensitive committee in congress.”

“I don’t know whether Eric Swalwell was giving information to the Chinese, I don’t know but he was involved with a Chinese communist spy and that makes you compromised right away.”

While King was hopeful about the breath of fresh air the new aid package could give to America and its economy, he said the longer-term focus on small businesses, which he called the “lifeblood of the economy,” will have to take a priority as a recovery appears closer.

But King was worried about what democratic policies could bring in the future, especially under a Biden administration, telling The Cats Roundtable that democrats were already “talking about raising taxes here in New York,” which King called a certain “killer for business.”

Born and raised in New York City, King shared his anxiety for the city under Mayor de Blasio, who he believed was fueling the closure of businesses and a wider “breakdown in law and order.”

De Blasio has faced criticism from within his party and without for his response to the coronavirus, and law enforcement advocates say his alienation of the police and fear to enrage protesters has led to spiking crime rates.  King echoed those criticisms, saying the protests across the country were far from peaceful.

“They were going up and down fifth avenue breaking windows of all the stores, looting,” King told The Cats Roundtable, adding it almost seemed like the protests were organized like “battle plans.”

But King, who is retiring at the end of the year, believed New York, just like the rest of the country, will spring back, and called for a grass-roots involvement in local and state politics to see the change that he thinks Americans need.

“It’s just an honor to represent New York and Long Island in the Congress of the United States,” King said about his tenure, calling his departure “bittersweet,” but hoped this Sunday vote could ensure a “new chapter” on the eve of a new year.

Listen to the interview below

 

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