Steve King says Trump’s voters are ‘uneasy’ over administration’s lack of progress – DesMoinesRegister.com

U.S. Rep. Steve King answers reporters' questions following a taping of "Iowa Press" on Thursday.(Photo: Jason Noble/The Register)Buy Photo

The voters who propelled Donald Trump into the White House are starting to get uneasy over slow progress onkey elements of the presidents agenda, U.S. Rep. Steve King said Thursday.

King, a Republican from Iowas 4th District, said Trumps mandate for enacting change is slightly wounded by the botched rollout of a health care reform package and particularly by his inaction thus far on limiting immigration.

King, an immigration hardliner who represents a district that voted heavily for Trump, made the comments Thursday during a taping of Iowa Press, Iowa Public Televisions weekly public affairs show. The full interview will air statewide at 7 p.m. on Friday and again at noon on Sunday.

Regarding immigration enforcement, King called on the president to rescind Obama administration executive orders allowing some undocumented workers to remain in the country and said the administration must make progress on constructing a wall along the southern border.

His base is starting to get uneasy because they havent seen movement yet on DACA and DAPA, and theyre not confident yet on the wall, he said.

When asked about others areas in which the president has markedly shifted his rhetoric since the campaign including on confronting the Syrian regime, the value of NATO alliances, Chinas status as a currency manipulator and on health care reform King acknowledged that Trump may be risking his standing with the voters who elected him.

The list of campaign promises that Donald Trump promised he was going to take care of, he marched through those pretty good in the first three or more weeks, he said in a follow-up interview. Now it seems to have bogged down.

King, an eight-term Congressman representing Iowas most conservative district, declined to answer a question on whether he would seek re-election in 2018, but said he enjoys the job and has gotten better at it every year.

When asked about his accomplishments over 15 years in office, King said his role has been to oppose his political opponents agenda rather than advance one of his own.

His top three successes, he said, were opposing a cap-and-trade regulatory system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, working against a comprehensive immigration reform package that passed the Senate but failed in the House in 2013 and agitating for years on the repeal of the health care law known as Obamacare.

The most important thing anyone can be doing, especially when theres a bad agenda coming at you, is to kill bad ideas, he said.

King was also asked about the perception that he is a racist. The accusation has been leveled against him numerous times following inflammatory comments hes made over the years regarding race, immigration and culture including last month after a tweet that drew rebukes from the White House and the Republican Party of Iowa.

King said there is no evidence that supports that assertion that he is racist.

Ive never responded to that charge because theres never been a basis for it, King said. The most dog-eared, worn-out card in the entire lexicon deck is the race card. There are some people who only have one card in their deck, and theyre 51 cards short.

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Steve King says Trump's voters are 'uneasy' over administration's lack of progress - DesMoinesRegister.com