Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., said Sunday that European officials held “smug” views on terrorism prior to the recent Brussels attacks.
“They were just not equipped for this,” King said Sunday on supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis’ show, “The Cats Roundtable,” on AM 970 in New York. “They were not ready. They had warnings that an attack like this could happen.
“It looks as if Brussels was totally unprepared,” said King, the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and current chairman of a subcommittee on intelligence and counterterrorism.
Brussels, Belgium, the seat of the European Union, was hit by a terrorist attack in March that killed 35.
King also added that in the years following 9/11 European officials “had a very smug attitude … that Americans always overreacted” to terrorism.
King argued that the Brussels bombings should serve as a wake-up call for Europe.
“They have to realize the terrorist is in the house, he said.
King also renewed his objection to the president allowing in vast amounts of Syrian refugees. “There is no way that we can be assured that the refugees coming from Syria … are not ISIS terrorists,” King said.
The Long Island congressman has a reputation as a national security hawk and a fierce advocate of aggressive anti-terrorism measures with limited patience for civil liberties concerns. King’s Homeland Security hearings on homegrown terrorism in 2011 drew denunciation from Muslim and civil rights groups who said they unfairly targeted Muslims.
King briefly considered a presidential campaign predicated on national security in 2016, visiting New Hampshire repeatedly in 2014, but opted to not run.
King also argued Sunday that the Guantanamo Bay military prison is too luxurious for terrorism suspects held there. Detainees are “spitting at the guards” without punishment, he said.
