REP. PETER KING (R-NEW YORK): Right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: President Obama's policies in summer of 2009, he took his apology, I believe have not helped the United States. They have weakened our position in the Middle East. They have provided -- sent a very mixed message, a confusing message. Combine that with the way he treats Netanyahu and Israel, and the pulling troops out of Iraq without getting status of forces agreement, the apologies.
You put it all together and I think what we saw this week is in many ways a logical result of all that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that last line. What we saw this week is in many ways a logical result of all that. Are you saying that the president is responsible and his policies responsible for the death of American ambassador to Libya?
KING: I'm saying the president's policies have sent a confused message. For instance, take Egypt. Here is a country getting $1.6 billion in aid, annual aid, from the United States. You have President Morsi for the first day, the entire day of our embassy being under attack, did virtually nothing to protect us and was actually putting out statements in Arabic where he was sympathizing with the demonstrators and those attacking the American embassy.
What it's done is it's created a climate, it's created an attitude in the Middle East where our allies don't trust us, where those who are undecided are starting to hedge their bets and turn against us. For instance in Iraq, the president talks about how he pulled out troops out of Iraq. The fact is he was given a glide path in Iraq. He pulled the truth out without get establish of forces agreement, leaving any troops behind. Now Iran is emerging as a major power in that region where if we had our troops there that would not happen.
O'BRIEN: But you've been talking about an apology tour. As you know that matches the framing of other people.
Donald Rumsfeld says he's made a practice of trying to apologize for America, he's talking about the president.
Mitt Romney has said I will not and never apologize for America. I don't apologize for America.
Tim Pawlenty back in February was saying, Mr. President, stop apologizing.
Where do you see an apology? You called it an apology tour. You said the apologies. What apologies are you specifically talking about?
KING: I would say when he was in Cairo in 2009, when he was basically apologizing for American policies, saying American policies sometimes have gone too far --
O'BRIEN: Never once in that speech, as you know, which I have the speech right here. That was -- he never once used the word apology. He never once said I'm sorry.
KING: Didn't have to. The logical -- any logical reading of that speech or the speech he gave in France where he basically said that the United States can be too aggressive --
O'BRIEN: That was on April 3rd in 2009. Right. But that's not apology. People --
KING: It is. I do consider it -- we're apologizing for -- we have nothing to apologize to the Muslim world at all. We have not sacrificed our ideals.
He was overseas criticizing American officials and the CIA and others when he says that we lost our ideals. These are the people who kept us safe for eight, nine years against Islamic terrorists.
O'BRIEN: Everybody keeps talking about this apology tour and apologies from the president.
KING: It is.
O'BRIEN: I'm trying to find the words I'm sorry, I apologize in any of those speeches. Which I have the text of all those speeches in front of me. None of those speeches at all, if you go to factcheck.org which we check in a lot, they all say the same thing. They fact check this.
KING: I don't care what fact check says.
O'BRIEN: There are fact checks. You may not care, but they're a fact checker. I'm reading the speeches.
KING: No. Soledad, what I'm saying is any common sense interpretation of those speeches, the president's apologizing for the American position. That's the apology tour.
That's the way it's interpreted in the Middle East. If I go over and say that the U.S. has violated its principles, that the United States has not shown respect for Islam, that's an apology. How else can it be interpreted?
O'BRIEN: I think plenty of people are interpreting it as a nuanced approach to diplomacy is how some people are interpreting it. So I don't think that everybody agrees it's apology.
KING: I don't interpret it that way.
O'BRIEN: Clearly.
KING: More importantly, our enemies don't interpret it that way.
O'BRIEN: I don't know that that's necessarily the case. I think that's what we're trying to figure out.
KING: I think it is. That's where we have an honest difference of opinion.