Congressman Steve King (file photo)

Iowa Congressman Steve King says he will push back harder against media outlets which he says “don’t tell the truth.”

King, a Republican from Kiron, won a narrow victory to retain the Fourth District seat last week over Democrat J.D. Scholten, who King claims was funded by out-of-state interests. “They said there was going to be a blue wave and then a blue tsunami but that didn’t really materialize,” King says. “What did materialize was a green tsunami, money coming out of cyberbully corporate people. Only 14% of his donors were Iowans and the rest of them were East Coast and West Coast. Millions of dollars and we think we were outspent something like 14-to-1.”

King barred some media outlets from his events in Sioux City on election night. He says he will not tolerate the untrue coverage of what he says, “When we have print media, and I’m going to say the Des Moines Register in particular and to a lesser degree the Sioux City Journal, and multiple other newspapers including the Washington Post and the New York Times, when they know the truth and refuse to print the truth and we call them out on what is true and it’s not their narrative so they won’t print it, those things all have to change.”

King says he will push back against false charges. “I’m calling them all out every time for every instance and if I have to hire a whole staff of people to do it, that’s what we’re going to do,” King says. “This district and this area of the country and hopefully the nation is going to get the truth and we’re going to find out the truth about them. I’d a lot rather it be me standing here then them because we’re right, they’re wrong. We’re honest, they’re not.”

King says he’s thrilled to have prevailed after being so maligned and outspent during the election. He concludes: “The principles of the Upper Midwest, the heart of the heartland, are what will carry America through to the future.”

(By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)