Steve King says he's repeatedly talked to white nationalist commentator Faith Goldy and taken her “through a lot of philosophy”

King: White nationalist “is a derogatory term today. I wouldn’t have thought so maybe a year, or two, or three ago”

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published


Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said that he has talked with white nationalist commentator Faith Goldy “a number of times” and “took her through a lot of philosophy.” 

King endorsed Goldy’s mayoral bid in an October 16 tweet. She lost the October 22 election, coming in third place. Goldy is an open white nationalist and anti-Semite. For instance:

  • Last year, Goldy went on a program affiliated with the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. Her employer, the Canadian-based company Rebel Media, fired her as a result of her appearance.
  • Goldy stated during an interview with “far-right YouTuber Stefan Molyneux that neo-Nazis offer ‘robust’ and ‘well thought-out ideas’ about the ‘JQ,’ a.k.a., the ‘Jewish question,’ a common anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about Jewish people controlling many aspects of society,” as The Daily Beast’s Pilar Melendez wrote.
  • Goldy “recited and defended the ‘14 Words’ white supremacist slogan and said the ‘pervasiveness of homosexuality’ enabled Nazi Germany. Goldy has recommended literature that advocates for the ‘elimination of Jews’ and has pulled supporters from local extremist groups to work her campaign for mayor,” as Right Wing Watch’s Jared Holt wrote.

King defended his endorsement of Goldy during an appearance on the October 21 edition of WHO’s The Insiders with Dave Price, claiming that she’s a “legitimate candidate.”

The Iowa congressman expanded on his ties to Goldy, stating that “she and I have talked a number of times. Face to face, not."

When asked if Goldy is a white supremacist, King replied: “I don't know that. I have not seen the evidence of that. Nothing came out in our conversations that would have indicated that. And I took her through a lot of philosophy, this was over the phone. We have mutual friends. I've asked some of those questions.” 

King additionally said that white nationalist "is a derogatory term today. I wouldn’t have thought so maybe a year, or two, or three ago. But today they use it in a derogatory term and they imply, it implies that you’re a racist.”

King has a long history of pushing bigotry, including tweeting that anti-Muslim European politician Gert “Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies”; promoting a tweet from British neo-Nazi Mark Collett; retweeting white nationalist host Lana Lokteff; and promoting the white nationalist site VDare and praising its founder and editor Peter Brimelow.

Recently, as HuffPost’s Christopher Mathias and Nick Robins-Early reported, King gave an interview to a far-right Austrian propaganda site in which he “discussed his belief in the superiority of European culture over others. He talked fearfully of falling fertility rates in the West and spoke at length about his belief that Europe and America are threatened by Muslim and Latino immigration.”

Mathias also noted in a July article headlined “Steve King Is A White Supremacist, And The GOP Doesn’t Care” (after King had retweeted Collett): “It’s not surprising that the eight-term congressman from Iowa retweeted a neo-Nazi. King has a long history of making terrible, bigoted comments. … What is surprising, and concerning, is that a sitting U.S. congressman can unapologetically promote a neo-Nazi’s propaganda on Twitter without real political consequence. Over the past month, none of King’s fellow Republicans have pushed to censure him or expel him from Congress. None have called for him to resign. Mostly, they have stayed quiet.”