Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, stepped up his criticism of Newt Gingrich this week, calling him a "delusional" presidential candidate-turned-"political assassin."
In a taped interview with New York's WPIX, King was asked if he agreed with an increasingly popular belief that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, winner of the first two primary election contests of the cycle, was indeed the inevitable choice to become the party's nominee.
"I don't want to go that far, we've had so many roller coasters this year," King responded. "A month ago Newt Gingrich was the frontrunner. Now he's just being an assassin, a political assassin out there."
According to King, Romney might not necessarily win, but Gingrich would most certainly lose.
"He has to know he has no chance of getting the nomination but he's coming down on Mitt Romney with all these charges, charges that a liberal Democrat could be making, attacking Romney for being too much a part of the free enterprise system," King told WPIX. "To have Newt Gingrich, supposedly a right-wing conservative, making those charges is the height of hypocrisy."
He's "going out of his way, millions and millions of dollars spent for one purpose, and that's to bring down Mitt Romney," King concluded.
King has expressed his disapproval of Gingrich's White House aspirations in harsh terms before. At the beginning of Gingrich's surge last month, King described the former House speaker has being "too self-centered," and lacking the "discipline" and "capacity to control himself."
King told Capital New York earlier this month that he favored Romney over the other candidates, but that he wasn't ready to endorse a candidate yet. He also said he saw eye-to-eye with former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum on a variety of issues such as defense. King, a defense hawk, went on to suggest that he'd like to see Santorum and Romney work to "isolate Ron Paul" in a debate about foreign policy.
Click over to WPIX for video of King's interview.