Steve King Closes His Campaign With Signature Inflammatory, Anti-Gay Remarks

These come just days after he refused to say whether he identified as a white supremacist.

Tom Williams/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Less than a week after failing to disavow white nationalism during a very public meltdown, embattled Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Monday concluded his reelection bid with multiple inflammatory and anti-gay remarks. 

“They sent money over to support a candidate in a primary in California who had a same-sex partner that they put all over glossy mailers,” King said during an event. “I don’t know if they’re holding hands or what was the deal.” 

He continued, “Man, that’s hard to write a check to those guys when they do that.” He suggested that true conservative leadership could not support gay candidates. It wasn’t clear which California candidate King was referring to on Monday.

https://twitter.com/AndrewBatesNC/status/1059605911453491201

Separately, King reportedly told supporters that he hoped to see Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the two liberal justices appointed by former President Barack Obama, go “elope to Cuba.” According to the Washington Post, King had been discussing the chances of conservatives creating a “7-2 court” in their favor after the midterms when he made the references to Kagan and Sotomayor.

The remarks on Monday close out what has been a surprisingly close race for King against his Democratic opponent, J.D. Scholten, after it was revealed last month that King had recently met with an Austrian political party with connections to Nazism. The meeting sparked intense focus on King’s long history of racist and xenophobic remarks, including his 2017 assertion that “we can’t restore civilization with other people’s babies.” 

King’s views prompted a rare rebuke from National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers that included a call to reject white nationalism. 

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate