Rep. Steve King (R-IA) pleaded with President Barack Obama over the weekend not to force the House of Representatives to begin impeachment hearings by taking executive action on reforming the immigration process after Congress failed to do so.
In an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked King what Republicans would do if the president decided to take executive action to stop the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants.
"None of us want to do the thing that's left for us as an alternative," King explained. "But if the president has decided that he's simple not going to enforce any immigration law or at least not against anybody except the felons -- which essentially he has done already, this is a broader group of people -- I think Congress has to sit down and have a serious look at the rest of this Constitution, and that includes that i-word that we don't want to say."
The Iowa Republican added: "And I only say that now because I want to encourage the president, 'Please don't put America into a constitutional crisis. Please don't do that. There's too much at stake in this country to be decided that you can take over the Constitution and write it at will.'"
"You're saying that if he were to do that, impeachment would be on the table?" Wallace pressed.
"I think then we have to sit down and take a look at that," King insisted. "If that's not enough to bring that about then I don't know what would be. We've never seen anything in this country like a president who says I'm going make up all the immigration law that I choose."
New York Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries pointed out that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had not unequivocally ruled out impeachment the way that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) did regarding President George W. Bush in 2008.
"And to the extent that John Boehner has made unequivocal statements before, such as 'We're not going to shut down the government,' he moved forward and shut down the government," Jeffries noted. "So, there's no real credibility there. We're not clear who actually is running the House of Representatives."
