Steve King

Steve King (file photo)

Republican Congressman Steve King isn’t backing down from statements he made during an appearance on a cable TV talk show panel Monday.

“It’s about time that somebody spoke up,” King said this morning. “Charlie (Pierce of Esquire), who was on MSNBC, going off against ‘old white people.’ And if you would Google ‘old white people’ or ‘old white men,’ now that’s something that continually flows out of mouths of the left and they’re disparaging a group of people who have contributed a tremendous amount to our civilization.”

King said “no other subgroup” has contributed more to the advance of western civilization than Christians of European ancestry. Democrats are calling King’s comments “outrageous” and Republican Governor Terry Branstad is dismissing them as well.

“I just think they were inappropriate,” Branstad said this morning. “…People know Steve King.”

King said “the truth is provocative” to people like Branstad who are in “the establishment.”

“They see culture as evolving…They want to accept it as quickly as possible so it’s not a liability to be ‘on the wrong side of history,’…That’s what they will say,” King said. “…I say instead that these fundamental principles are timeless. Whatever was a sin 2000 years ago is a sin today.”

If Republicans don’t make a stand, King said the party will “have no ground left to stand on” pretty soon.

“I don’t think the establishment wing of the party stands up against the multiculturalists, the political correct crowd,” King said this morning. “They back up from them. They kowtow to them and I say instead: ‘Let’s confront them.'”

King faces Democrat Kim Weaver this fall as he seeks reelection to an eighth term in the U.S. House.