On Saturday, Mr. King tweeted praise of Geert Wilders, the anti-immigration leader of the Dutch Party of Freedom, running for prime minister, saying on Twitter, “Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
.. He said many people who come to the country illegally refuse to “assimilate into the American culture and civilization.”
.. Mr. King said his comments weren’t related to race, but to culture. “It’s the culture, not the blood. If you could go anywhere in the world and adopt these little babies and put them into households that were already assimilated into America, those babies will grow up as American as any other baby,” he told CNN.
.. In June 2014, he called former President Barack Obama “Kim Jong POTUS” for supporting canceling the patent for the Washington Redskins logo.
In July 2013, he criticized children brought to the country illegally by saying that “for everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”
.. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office tied the comments to recent bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers and the Kansas shooting that targeted two Indian men and called for Speaker Paul Ryan to address the comments.
.. Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill said. “The GOP Leadership must stop accommodating this garbage, and condemn Congressman Steve King’s statements in the strongest and most unequivocal terms.”
AshLee Strong, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokeswoman, said: “The speaker clearly disagrees and believes America’s long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths.”