GOP Rep. Steve King wants supporters to pray that he'll get his House committee spots back

The House's top Republican won't give Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) his committee assignments back. So King's appealing to an even higher power.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) revoked King's committee spots after King made racist remarks to The New York Times last month. King tied the issue into a prayer for McCarthy when speaking to supporters on Monday, saying he hoped McCarthy would "separate his ego from this issue and look at it objectively," the Sioux City Journal reports.

In the Times interview, King pondered the terms "white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization," asking, "how did that language become offensive?" The House nearly unanimously condemned King's language and some even called for him to step down. McCarthy, meanwhile, announced the House Steering Committee decided King could not serve on any committees.

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King defended his comments yet again on Monday, alleging the Times reporter "'at best' misquoted him," the Sioux City Journal writes. King also declared "the language police are out there day after day ... searching the internet for something to be offended by," and said McCarthy made a "bad decision ... based upon one comment misquoted in The New York Times, reported as fact."

Even before January's situation, King has called for a "homogenous" America and has occasionally retweeted white nationalists. Perhaps most notably, he's said that "we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies" — something David Duke really seemed to like.