Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told constituents at a town hall in Iowa that he drank out of a toilet at a migrant detention facility “to prove that criticisms of the conditions in those facilities are unfounded,” the Daily Beast reports.
Said King: “I actually went into that cell where it was reported that they were advised they had to drink out of the toilet. I took a drink out of there. And actually, pretty good!”
“As he gears up for a difficult re-election cycle, Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA)campaign is strapped for cash. Individual donations to the Iowa Republican are down considerably from past cycles and support from corporate donors and King’s own colleagues have vanished entirely,” the Daily Beast reports.
“It is a remarkable though not entirely unpredictable abandonment of a sitting member of Congress. Though he was always controversial and further to the right than most of his colleagues, King has burned virtually all his bridges in the party this year with outlandish comments about white supremacy and abortion.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, has called for Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to resign over his comments on rape and incest.
“Rep. Steve King, the Iowa Republican who was stripped of his congressional committee assignments earlier this year, was not allowed to fly aboard Air Force One on Tuesday as President Donald Trump traveled to Iowa,” CNN reports.
“Rep. Steve King (R-IA), hellbent on making a congressional comeback, is vowing to look at all procedural options to force his way back onto the committees from which he was exiled,” Politico reports.
“But the Iowa Republican is finding little support from his colleagues for the doomed mission, which comes nearly six months after King was kicked off the panels for making racist remarks.”
Said King: “It was a political lynch mob. I had to let the blood cool. And the blood has now cooled, and now they don’t want to be faced with the reality of what they’ve done.”
“A small group of House Republicans is leading a long-shot bid to get embattled Rep. Steve King (R-IA) back on his committee assignments after the Iowa Republican was booted for making racists remarks earlier this year,” Politico reports.
“The cadre of hard-line conservatives, spearheaded by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), among others, has been trying to round up signatures for a draft petition that would force the GOP to consider reinstating King. The effort, however, has failed to garner enough support in the caucus.”
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said he can relate to the suffering of Jesus Christ, seemingly equating his recent controversies to what Christ “went through for us,” CNN reports.
Said King: “For all that I’ve been through — and it seems even strange for me to say it — but I am at a certain peace, and it is because of a lot of prayers for me.”
He added: “And, when I have to step down to the floor of the House of Representatives, and look up at those 400-and-some accusers, you know we just passed through Easter and Christ’s passion, and I have better insight into what He went through for us partly because of that experience.”
Washington Post: “Shunned by his party’s leadership, bounced from congressional hearings, removed from key parts of the legislative process, and serving in the House minority — the Republican from Iowa has less to do than any congressman in recent history. But he still must do something, right? Does anyone know?”
“Today, King has less goodwill and more free time than ever. One thing he’s doing today is avoiding discussing what he’s doing.”
“”For nearly two decades, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) pummeled Republican primary challengers, dispatched Democrats, even a former Iowa governor’s wife, and glided to victory in his conservative district. He spent little energy on fund-raising, put few controls on his racist language and made little effort to hold town halls with constituents,” the New York Times reports.
“Then in November he was re-elected by just 10,000 votes… two months later he was stripped of his committee assignments and rebuked by the House for comments that seemed to endorse white supremacy. Now the nine-term Iowa Republican is under attack from both the left and the right.”
“Far from folding, though, Mr. King is returning to basics, reasserting an aggressive presence in his northwestern Iowa district, scheduling events in every county and holding as many as three town halls in a week, where constituents pack in, then linger to take photos and shake hands.”
A defiant Rep. Steve King (R-IA) “confirmed that he will run for a 10th term as an Iowa congressman, despite controversies over his history of caustic remarks, including about race and immigration,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Said King: “I have nothing to apologize for.”
“In front of another friendly audience Monday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) urged his supporters to pray for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to restore King’s committee assignments, saying the California Republican needs to ‘separate his ego from this issue and look at it objectively,'” the Sioux City Journal reports.
“McCarthy stripped King of all his committee assignments for the next two years following a national uproar over King’s quote in a New York Times story in which he asked, ‘White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?’”
“While Republicans and Democrats are condemning or calling for Rep. Steve King’s resignation after his comments on white nationalism and white supremacy, the congressman is using the backlash to raise money for his campaign,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Writes King in a fundraising email: “The unhinged left has teamed up with Republican ‘NeverTrumpers’ and is pulling out all the stops to destroy me.”
Politico: “Everyone knew Steve King’s history of racist rhetoric. It had gone on for more than a decade. But House Republicans did something about it this week, as Democrats moved to denounce King on the House floor. After years of tolerating King’s offensive remarks on race, minority groups and immigrants, House GOP leaders reached their breaking point — a New York Times interview in which the Iowa Republican defended white nationalism and white supremacy.”
“While the King drama played out over the past few days, some Republicans seized on the incident to reorient the party’s position — and maybe more importantly, its language — on race. Yet with President Donald Trump regularly stoking racial division from the Oval Office, it’s not clear the action against King will amount to anything meaningful for the GOP.”
The Sioux City Journal joins the call for Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to resign:
Taken together, past controversial King comments related to race, the King comment in The Times story and reaction to the comment in The Times story have produced the need for change in this district’s House seat, in our view. Constituents deserve better and more from the man or woman we send to represent us in Washington, D.C.
If he cares deeply about citizens of the 4th, and we believe he does, King should do what is in their best interests and step down from office.
The Des Moines Register says that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) should resign from Congress:
Congressman Steve King should resign. He has lost even the potential to effectively represent his Iowa constituents because of his abhorrent comments about white nationalism and white supremacy.
King has often made Iowa a laughing stock on the national stage with his offensive and absurd remarks about undocumented immigrants, comparing them to dogs or disparaging them as drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes.
But it wasn’t until a few weeks before the November election that top national Republicans and corporate donors started to abandon King.
NBC News’ standards department sent an email to staffers Tuesday telling them not to directly refer to Rep. Steve King’s recent comments about white supremacy as “racist,” the HuffPost reports.
From the email: “Be careful to avoid characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist. It is ok to attribute to others as in ‘what many are calling racist’ or something like that.”
House Republican leaders moved to strip Rep. Steve King (R-IA) of his committee assignments over his comments about white nationalism, the Washington Post reports.
Said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “We will not be seating Steve King on any committees in the 116th Congress.”
“The decision was unanimous. It must be ratified by all House Republicans.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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