Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) said that the Obama Administration needs to break its silence and refuse Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's request that the United States release Omar Abdel-Rahman ("The Blind Sheik") Thursday afternoon on FNC. Abdel-Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in a North Carolina federal prison stemming from a conviction related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Morsi, according to a CNN interview, will request that Obama improve Abdel-Rahman's prison conditions. King reacted incredulously to Megyn Kelly's question as to whether ordinary Americans care about Abdel-Rahman's current state of confinement:
MEGYN KELLY: I mean, let me ask you this, let me ask you this, congressman. The people in this country I imagine think "oh he's a convicted terrorist, he killed a bunch of Americans and he's going to stay in prison - he's lucky all he got was a life sentence." So he's going to stay in prison -
PETER KING: Right, absolutely.
KELLY: But, this is a big deal in Egypt, they love the "Blind Sheik" and now to the point where their president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is being very public in an interview on CNN planning to ask President Obama personally about this, he wants him released and says at a minimum wants to know about his prison conditions and whether they can be improved and [be] more humane because he's an old man. Do you think ordinary Americans give a flying fig he's an old man and doesn't really like his prison conditions?
KING: No, in fact, I agree with you. I think the only regret Americans have is that he's still alive. Quite frankly, the president of the United States should not even consider or contemplate any type of request like this, which is why the president, I believe President Obama should cut this short right now, say he's going to die in an American prison, he's under better conditions than anyone in an Egyptian prison and with all human rights requirements, end of discussion right then and there.