Racist Iowa congressman Steve King might just squeak out a victory in the midterm elections, but he’s having a pretty shitty week on the campaign front. A handful of King’s corporate donors—Intel, Land O’Lakes, and Purina—have finally cut him off in response to his white nationalist views. Damn, butter and dog food in one week? Ouch.
And now, King has to deal with people asking him legitimate questions about his links to white nationalists at home and neo-Nazism abroad. Rough.
King got angry on Thursday when constituent Kaleb Van Fosson compared the xenophobic tweets of the suspect in the Tree of Life synagogue shooting that killed 11 people to King’s own notably xenophobic tweets about the preservation of western civilization.
“You and the shooter both share an ideology that is anti-immigration—”
“No, do not associate me with that shooter!” snapped King. “I knew you were an ambusher when you walked into the room.”
“If you don’t have a white supremacist world view, then why did you travel to Austria and meet with a white supremacist organization?” Van Fosson asked, referring to King’s meeting with members of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party.
The Washington Post reports that the Freedom Party was “founded by a former Nazi SS officer and is now led by Heinz-Christian Strache, who was active in neo-Nazi circles as a youth.” The report went on to note that, “While the party has distanced itself from those connections, it recently embraced a hard-line anti-immigration stance while seeking ties with other far-right parties and leaders abroad.” That sounds perfectly aligned with King’s interests.
“Do you identify as a white nationalist?” Van Fosson asked, though King would not answer.
“Stop it!” the Iowa congressman cried. “You’re done!”
Correction: An earlier version of this story identified Kaleb Van Fosson as a reporter. He’s a constituent from Steve King’s district.