On Meet the Press, Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, took a few shots at Senator Rand Paul and Representative Justin Amash as he defended the NSA’s eavesdropping on the personal phone calls of Angela Merkel and other top allies.
On the subject of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, King said “it bothers the hell out of me that people in my own party, such as Rand Paul, Justin Amash, people on the left also, somehow they try to exalt Snowden. This guy is causing tremendous damage to the country.”
When the subject of drones came up, King said, “tell Rand Paul to stop doing overnight filibusters on people being killed with drones in Starbucks. We should be standing by our military. Standing by the intelligence agencies.”
President Obama “should be out there. He’s the commander in chief. He should stand with NSA,” King said.
King defended America spying on the leaders of allied countries by pointing out that U.S. surveillence has helped thwart terrorist plots in many of those countries. Host David Gregory pushed back, pressing King on how intercepting Merkel’s phone calls would help stop terrorism, since the U.S. and Germany share intelligence about terrorist plots. King insisted that that surveillance would be “ultimately useful to Germany.”