Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer said on Tuesday that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — who recently came under fire for saying that “civilization” cannot be restored “with somebody else’s babies” — “cares about his people” and has Spencer’s support.
“Steve King isn’t perfect,” Spencer tweeted. “But he speaks truthfully and cares about his people and civilization.”
Steve King isn’t perfect… but he speaks truthfully and cares about his people and civilization. I support him.https://t.co/zqglMoTOBy
— Richard ? Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) March 14, 2017
Apparently King’s “people and civilization” does not include “somebody else’s babies,” according to a tweet the congressman posted on Sunday.
“We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” King tweeted, along with praise for Geert Wilders, an anti-Muslim Dutch politician with whom King has previously associated himself.
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke expressed fervent support for King’s sentiment.
“GOD BLESS STEVE KING!!!” he tweeted. “Sanity reigns supreme in Iowa’s 4th congressional district.”
King doubled down on his comments on Monday, saying that he “meant exactly what I said” in the post.
Asked on WHO radio’s “The Jan Mickelson Show” in Des Moines if he would change anything about the tweets, King said: “Not at all.”
In the same interview with Mickelson, King said that “Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other” before outnumbering the population of white people in the United States.
Spencer included a link to a CNN report on those comments in his tweet.
“I support him,” Spencer tweeted.
Spencer’s own rise to prominence has come with its share of controversy and backlash.
In January, Spencer was punched on two separate occasions by two different people in the middle of an inauguration protest in Washington, D.C., and his white nationalist nonprofit, the National Policy Institute, recently lost its tax-exempt status for failing to file federal tax returns.