Steve King Removed From Committee Assignments Over White Supremacy Remark – The New York Times

“The N.R.C.C. does not get involved in primaries and isn’t going to comment on a hypothetical general election two years away,” said Chris Pack, a spokesman for the House campaign arm.

Democrats are moving to censure or reprimand the Iowa congressman, a stinging penalty. Among them were Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest ranking African-American in Congress, who introduced a measure Monday night in the form of a resolution of disapproval of Mr. King’s comments and white nationalism.

Democratic leaders in the House have yet to say what they will do with the competing censure resolutions, but are inclined to allow a vote of some sort related to Mr. King’s remarks, according to one senior Democratic aide.

In the interview with The Times, Mr. King also reflected on the record number of minorities and women in the new Democratic-controlled House. “You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men,” he said.

Mr. King’s hard-line immigration policies and demeaning comments about Hispanics foreshadowed Mr. Trump’s nativist rhetoric in his 2016 campaign, in his two years in the White House and during the government shutdown over a border wall. The president once boasted to Mr. King that he raised more money for him than anyone else, Mr. King recalled in the Times article, which traced how the Iowa congressman helped write the playbook for white identity politics that dominate the Republican Party under Mr. Trump.

He has already drawn one serious primary opponent, state senator Randy Feenstra, for the 2020 campaign and some high-profile Republicans have indicated they will not embrace his re-election.

“It does open the door for other individuals to take a look,” Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa said in a television interview last week of Mr. King’s closer-than-expected victory last year.