Steve King Claims He Didn’t Know He Retweeted a Nazi Sympathizer… But He’s Not Deleting It
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has no regrets about retweeting a self-described Hitler fan a few weeks ago, and has no intention of deleting the tweet, reported CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday.
King said he is “not sorry” and that “it’s the message, not the messenger” that matter.
On July 13, King retweeted British Nazi-sympathizer Mark Collett on the topic of immigration.
Collett tweeted an article from Breitbart with the comment “65% of Italians under the age of 35 now oppose mass immigration. Europe is waking up,” and King retweeted that.
King also added his own comment, “Europe is waking up…Will America…in time?
“I had never heard his name before, and I don’t know why anybody would ever know his name, for that matter,” King told Raju. “I think it’s really unjust for anyone to assign the beliefs of someone else because there’s a message there among all of that. I mean it’s the message, not the messenger.”
The New York Times had this to say about Collett after the original retweet:
Mr. Collett was the subject of a 2002 documentary on Channel 4 in Britain titled “Young, Nazi and Proud.” In it, he says that AIDS is a “friendly disease because blacks, drug users and gays have it,” HuffPost reported.
CNN asked Rep. King why he wouldn’t delete a retweet of someone who “has praised Nazi Germany.”
“Because,” King replied, “then it’d be like I’m admitting that I did something, now I’m sorry about it. I’m not sorry. I’m human.”
[Featured image via screengrab]
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