GOP Rep. Steve King complains he's been the victim of 'cyberbullying' for his comments about white supremacy

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who was removed from his committee assignments last month after comments about white supremacy, says he will seek re-election in 2020 and will do so with a clean conscience.

King in an interview with Iowa Public Television on Thursday said that he has "nothing to apologize for," immediately going after the news media and citing President Trump as saying The New York Times is "a dishonest entity." King in January had been quoted in a Times interview as saying, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?" The congressman also faced criticism in October after meeting with a group with Nazi ties and endorsing a white nationalist candidate for Toronto mayor, reports The Washington Post.

But King on Thursday blamed the outrage he has faced in recent months on "formerly credible" news organizations, which create a "phenomenon that America is not ready for, and that's this cyberbullying that unleashes." He insisted that there is "no story whatsoever" and that these reports from the Times and the Post were false.

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In particular, King claimed he had been misquoted by the Times and that his question of "how did that language become offensive?" was only referring to the term "Western civilization," not the terms white nationalist and white supremacist. The Times interview, however, was far from the first time King came under fire for using white supremacist language. He had also said in 2017, "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies," later defending this comment by saying "it's not about race." Additionally, he said of the term "white nationalist" in 2018, "It is a derogatory term today. I wouldn't have thought so maybe a year or two or three ago."