Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said Wednesday that a heated panel discussion he participated in earlier this week was disparaging to “old white people.”
King asked his co-panelists Monday on MSNBC to provide him with a “sub group” that gave more to civilization than whites. That charged remark came after Esquire writer Charles Pierce argued that this year’s Republican National Convention would be the last time “old white people” commanded the Republican Party’s attention.
“Now, that’s disparaging a group of people, and ‘old white people’ — can you trade that language out by adding any other group in there as an adjective?” King said at a Washington Post event, as quoted by Politico.
“And by the way, I am wise enough not to even do that for people, because then it blows the whole Twittersphere up again,” he continued, as quoted by Politico. “But he was disparaging a group of people, a subgroup of people, ‘old white people,’ and saying they’re going to be out of the politics of the Republican Party. That’s gotta be answered.”
King further asserted that “no other group of people” would’ve taken Pierce’s assertion lying down, adding that Pierce himself is “not a young, white guy.”