Two of the most influential Republican senators, Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, today charged against their party’s legislator, Steve King, for making a comment that sympathizes with white supremacy.
“There is no room in the Republican Party, Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind. (…) King’s statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his position,” McConnell said in a statement.
Speaking to The New York Times last week, King said he did not understand why the white supremacist term had become “offensive.”
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization: How did this language become offensive?” King asked, according to the New York newspaper.
That controversial comment caused a stir within the Democratic Party, although most Republicans had remained silent until today.
“If he does not understand why ‘white supremacy’ is offensive, he should find another job,” said McConnell, who distanced himself from King’s opinion.
For his part, the former presidential candidate in the 2012 election, Senator Romney, told CNN that King should resign.
“I think he should step aside and that Congress should make it very clear that he has no place there,” Romney said.
The leader of the Republican minority in the House, Kevin McCarthy, announced in a statement that the leadership of his party has decided today that King will not be part of any committee of that chamber, that they control and supervise different budgetary items and investigations, a idea that had taken force in the last hours.
After this announcement, King criticized the decision of his party and assured that it is a “political decision that ignores the truth.”
Despite the controversy generated in recent days, the president, Donald Trump, has avoided pronouncing and has dodged the questions about it.
“I have not been following him,” Trump told reporters today when asked about the case.
Trump was widely criticized in August 2017 after the president avoided pointing to the far right as responsible for the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville (Virginia), which resulted in a dead woman and a score of wounded.
The president blamed “many camps” first, but after 48 hours of the events he condemned neo-Nazis, white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan, all present in Charlottesville.
Trump, however, did not take 24 hours to amend that sentence by insisting on his theory of “the two sides” and affirming that among the neo-Nazis there were “very good people” (EFEUSA).
