Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, bashed fellow GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Kevin McCarthy in an interview after the House passed a resolution that rejected all forms of hateful expression.
The resolution was introduced by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., to specifically call out King for comments he made to the New York Times that many say are racist.
“I will tell you if there is support out there for Liz Cheney after this, you can’t put her in a category of ever being a conservative again,” King told the Ed Martin Movement radio show after the Wyoming congresswoman called for his resignation Tuesday morning.
“She called for my resignation, she’s been here for two years. What would give her the moral authority or the intellectual judgment to do something like that?” King said.
He said fellow Republican lawmakers have expressed their respect and admiration for him, and he also heard from people of his home district.
“We’re getting a lot of support from the district, they’re starting to realize what Kevin McCarthy did,” King said.
On Monday, McCarthy, the House minority leader from California, voted alongside other House Republicans to strip King of all committee assignments.
“We will not be seating Steve King on any committees in the 116th Congress,” McCarthy told reporters after meeting with the House GOP steering committee. “It was a unanimous decision by steering in light of the comments. These are not the first time we’ve heard these comments.”
The fallout came after a New York Times story was published in which King asked when the terms “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” become offensive.
It is expected that he will lose his post on the House Judiciary Committee, including the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, the House Agriculture Committee, and the Small Business Committee.
