Samantha Bee documents GOP Rep. Steve King's white supremacy, explains the right's George Soros vilification


Rep. Steve King (R) "is the congressman from Iowa's 4th District," Samantha Bee said on Wednesday's Full Frontal. "He also happens to be the district's most disgraceful white supremacist, barely edging out the runner-up, a cow named Adolf Heifer." She showed a reel of "Steve's greatest hits," adding: "How racist is this live-action Disney villain? For one thing, until recently, he kept a Confederate flag on his desk — even though, again, he's from Iowa, which was on the Union side."
"Steve King is also really into neo-Nazis," Bee said. She made a NSFW slam on King; noted he said Austria's far-right, Nazi-founded party would be part of the Republican coalition; and got a little self-referential: "Oh my God, did Steve King just say Nazis are Republicans? So tomorrow morning when you read the headline 'Samantha Bee says Republicans are Nazis,' remember, I didn't say that! Steve King said it. Now you might be wondering: Why was Steve King even meeting with a Nazi-led party in Austria anyway? Turns out he was on a Holocaust memorial trip." Womp womp.
"Steve King has consistently spewed racism for 16 years, with only the occasional half-hearted reprimand from his party" — until this week, Bee sighed. "I look forward to 16 years from now, when President Paul Cyber Ryan gets around to condemning Trump's racism."
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Bee also tackled anti-Semitism. "In response to the anti-Semitic massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday, the White House was quick to denounce the hateful attacks on the true victim, our president," she said. Yes, President "Trump and many other Republicans reacted to the shooting by condemning anti-Semitism — always nice when we can agree that some hate crimes are bad — but the truth is, the Republican Party tolerates anti-Semitism and benefits from it." You can watch her argument on how anti-Semitism "is shockingly mainstream in the Republican Party," and the history behind the mainstream right's vilification of George Soros, below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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