Republican lawmaker says his colleagues loved his racist, anti-immigrant remarks

By Katie McDonough  |  March 17, 2017 | 3:37pm
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Steve King is doing fine and has lots of friends in the House, thanks for asking.

Nearly a week after tweeting, then doubling down on, some real white supremacist shit about how “demographics are our destiny” and “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” the Iowa Republican said he’s received warm support for the remarks from his Republican colleagues. Often in the form of placing a warm, meaty hand on his back and going: pat, pat, pat.

“My colleagues have generally been coming by and patting me on the back,” King told The Hill late on Thursday. “And a surprising number have said that they pray for me. And, meaning they support me and they agree with me, a surprising number.”

“I don’t often have members come up and say at the end of the day, ‘I prayed for you this morning,'” he continued. “So they must think I’ve got a lot of arrows in my back.”

That said, a handful of King’s colleagues in the House did try to put some distance between themselves and his comments. As a particularly rousing example, when confronted with his colleague’s white supremacist talking points, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, through a spokesperson, that he “clearly disagrees” with King’s remarks.

Then he said it himself on Fox News: “I disagree.”

Incredible.

At least one House Republican said that he confronted King about the comments, according to The Hill. Carlos Curbelo, a representative from Florida, said he approached King: “I saw him down at conference, and I said, ‘Hey, I just want to know if I’m somebody else’s baby.’”

They apparently exchanged phone numbers to talk it over.

“So he sent me his number and we agreed we’d talk whenever we both have time to sit down and talk about it,” Curbelo said.

If they do chat, Curbelo may want to bone up a little on King’s record of saying extremely racist things in public and somehow getting repeatedly reelected anyway.

 
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