Steve King Bashes McCarthy, Liz Cheney After House Condemnation: What Gives Her the ‘Moral Authority’ to Criticize Me?
In a radio interview on KXFN-AM out of St. Louis, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), on Tuesday, discussed the move by House Republicans to strip him of committee assignments over his recent remarks about white supremacy and nationalism, quoted in the New York Times. King attacked the GOP over the decision, while also claiming many secretly agree with him.
The lengthy interview conducted by host Ed Martin is available in full here.
In the full interview, he states again that his remarks were misrepresented. Of House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who led the stripping of committee seats, King said that “he decided he’s going to believe The New York Times over Steve King, and that’s a fact.”
Martin, in the shorter clip above, calls the actions of the GOP an example of “the swamp,” and said that King has a record of “supporting decreasing the amount of immigration, legal, and certainly fighting illegal immigration.” “You’ve talked about how our Judeo-Christian background is what informs the rule of law,” he said. “You haven’t hidden that.”
“So why now?” he asked King, essentially asking the same question that some Democrats have been asking, with rather a different implication, to say why is the GOP against King now when he’s always said the same things. The host rambled a bit further after the question, revising it from “why now?” to “are the conservatives standing with you or is everybody running for the swamp?”
King suggested some Republicans who voted for the resolution rebuking King’s remarks came up to offer their admiration.
“I know that there are conservative standing with me,” he said. “A respectable came up one at a time, and expressed their, I’ll say, some of them their affection for me, the respect, admiration– those words all came out of their mouth. So I know there’s a core there.”
King said he hasn’t a conversation with the Freedom Caucus, but with the resolution condemning white supremacy and racism “out of the way,” now “some things will cook.”
“We’re getting a lot of support from the district. They’re starting to realize what Kevin McCarthy did,” he said.
King also bashed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) questioning what gives her the “moral authority or intellectual judgment” to criticize him.
Fox News aired portions of the interview, including King’s remarks about McCarthy (below, courtesy of FOX News Channel.)
[Featured image via screengrab]
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