Republican Congressman Steve King unloaded Thursday at a town hall at a young man compared him to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter.
The unidentified questioner told the congressman ‘you and the shooter both share ideology that is anti-immigration’ as he asked a question that King interrupted to vociferously distance himself from the anti-Semite and mass murderer.
‘No, don’t you do that. Do not associate me with that shooter. I knew you were an ambusher when you walked in the room. But there’s no basis for that. And you get no questions and no answers,’ King, who has been accused of harboring racial animosity for years, told the young man.
Republican Congressman Steve King unloaded Thursday on a constituent at a town hall who compared him to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter
The unidentified questioner told the congressman ‘you and the shooter both share ideology that is anti-immigration’ as he asked a question that King cut off
As the national media picked up King’s rant at the town hall, he doubled down on the comments in a tweet
King is facing his a serious challenge in Iowa from Democrat J.D. Scholten in a cycle in which Trump has played to the very same voters that put the right-wing Republican congressman in office.
The president visited Iowa earlier and sang the incumbent congressman’s praises.
Trump’s support may not be enough to keep King in office this year, however. A poll published by Change Research last week gave King a one-point lead in the combative race that the campaign arm of the GOP has totally abandoned.
On Thursday, the congressman exploded as a young man who asked him at a Des Moines campaign event to differentiate his views from those held by a man who slaughtered 11 people at a synagogue last Saturday.
‘You’re done. You crossed the line. It’s not tolerable to accuse me to be associated with a guy that shot 11 people in Pittsburgh,’ King told him. ‘This is over, if you don’t stop talking.’
King did answer speak to the issue at the heart of the question, though- saying that he can’t be like the anti-Semitic murdered because he’s a strong supporter of Israel.
‘I am a person that has stood with Israel from the beginning. The length of that nation is the length of my life,’ he stated. ‘And I’ve been with them all along, and I will not answer your question and I’ll not listen to another word from you.’
Asked point blank, ‘Do you identify as a white supremacist?’ He asked for the young man to be removed from the event.
Video online ends with the questioner packing up to leave.
According to CNN, the exchange continued for several more seconds.
‘Sorry that you couldn’t answer my question,’ he said as he left. ‘I was hoping to get a sincere answer.’
King told him, ‘Stop it! Nobody is going to listen to you, you’re gone.’
‘We don’t behave like that in this country,’ he asserted.
A Democratic tracking site, Starting Line, said the questioner was a member of the public and not an plant as King had suggested.
As the national media picked up King’s rant at the town hall, he doubled down on the comments in a retweet of Starting Line’s post.
‘Leftist Media Lies have reached Peak Insanity and compared me to the evil Pittsburgh murderer of 11 Jews! Here is my reaction,’ he said in a re-share of the video.
The National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee had already said it was yanking its funding for King following his endorsement of a Canadian candidate who was assailed as a white nationalist after appearing on a Neo-Nazi podcast.
After the national media picked up King’s rant at the town hall, he doubled down on the comments in a tweet
In an afternoon tweet on the day that the poll was published showing King in danger, NRCC chair Steve Stivers threw his colleague to the wolves.
‘Congressman Steve King’s recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate,’ he tweeted. ‘We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.’
Hours prior, Land O’Lakes had withdrawn its endorsement of King. The company had donated $2,500 to his reelection campaign in June and was facing a boycott of its products. Intel also pulled its support for King.
That evening former Vice President Joe Biden told Iowans they are ‘better than this’ at a campaign event in Cedar Rapids for a Democratic congressional candidate.
King was slow to back Trump in 2016, throwing his weight behind Sen. Ted Cruz in the Hawkeye State’s caucuses. He endorsed Trump later in the year after then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed on as the Republican nominee for president’s running mate.
Still, Trump gave King his full-throated backing this fall at a Oct. 9 rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he joked about the congressman’s far-right views.
The president said at the rally that he’d been a backer of King before he ever ran for office.
The race is rated as ‘leans Republican’ by the Cook Political Report. It downgraded King’s seat from safe Republican after Stivers distanced the NRCC from him.
President Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the state by nearly 150,000 votes.