Last week, white nationalist Rep. Steve King wondered aloud to the New York Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”. The inability to grasp why the language of white supremacy was "offensive" was too much even for House Republican leaders, and it's now cost him his high-profile committee assignments.
"We will not be seating Steve King on any committees in the 116h Congress," Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters after the Republican steering committee decided unanimously to pull those committee assignments this evening.
King, from Iowa, loses his slots on both the Agriculture and Judiciary committees.
Rep. Steve King has a long, long history of promoting white nationalist rhetoric, as well as endorsing and publicizing European white nationalists and extremists. Some Republicans briefly distanced themselves from King immediately before the 2018 elections due to his public endorsement of a neo-Nazi tied Toronto mayoral candidate, but for the most part the party continued to stand by him. The egregiousness of his latest remarks was, however, finally too much for party leaders to stomach.
These may not be the last repercussions for King: Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois has already stated he would introduce a resolution to formally censure King for his remarks, an act far short of a deserved expulsion from the House but one that Republicans may, presuming these new condemnations of his statements are sincere, feel obliged to carry out.