GOP Leaders Promise Vague Consequences For Steve King: ‘Action Will Be Taken’

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 02: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) (L) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) talk to journalists following a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretar... WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 02: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) (L) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) talk to journalists following a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and fellow members of Congress about border security at the White House January 02, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump and House Democrats are no closer to a deal on funding for Trump’s border wall and reopening parts of the federal government that have been shuttered for the past 12 days. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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The top two Republicans in the House of Representatives, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), wouldn’t say on Sunday whether Rep. Steve King (R-IA) will face any consequences for seemingly implying to the New York Times that terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” should not be considered offensive.

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King wondered to the Times in a piece published Thursday. After considerable backlash, King said: “I reject those labels and the evil ideology that they define.” But his past racist comments have been welldocumented.

It’s certainly not the first time King has aligned himself with racist ideologies.

In June, for example, he retweeted a British neo-Nazi, to silence from Republican leadership. And in October, he endorsed the Toronto mayoral candidate Faith Goldy. In December 2017, Goldy joined other white nationalists in a YouTube discussion and explicitly endorsed enthno-nationalism, saying: “It is a natural tribal instinct for human communities to go with their own. So the question is, are we going to continue to work against nature and try to rise above it even though we’re 40, 50, 60 years into this experiment?”

This post has been updated.

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