When former Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy for president last week, the major media was quick to seize on this story as an opportunity to discredit Ramaswamy. After all, according to The New York Times and other organs of the establishment opinion cartel, King has spoken favorably of white supremacy. And it does not matter one iota to the media cartel that King denies the accusation.
At a campaign event in Iowa, a Washington Post reporter tried to confront Ramaswamy with a gotcha moment by quoting King supposedly spewing white supremacy. But Ramaswamy would have none of it.
“In 2019 Steve King said white nationalist, white supremacist —” the Post reporter began, before being cut off by Ramaswamy, who interjected, “According to who?” After being told the source was the New York Times, Ramaswamy elaborated as to why he was not going to accept the Times’ word over that of Steve King:
Yeah, according to the New York Times, which [King] has challenged the existence of whether he actually ever said that to the New York Times. They have not produced one recording of it. And if anybody has provided one other eyewitness account that verifies whatever it is. I’m just not one of these people that treats the New York Times as the Bible. I’m sorry, it’s not. They’ve lied to us for years about everything from the pandemic which shut down this country for the last several years, to each of the last two presidential elections — from tech-suppressed information in the last one to what happened with the federal police state that tried to infiltrate Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 and stopped him from governing. You could go all the way back to the Iraq War, to the truth about what happened with the basis for the bailouts. You can go back as far as you want from the front pages of the New York Times, to tell you now to be skeptical of what you read. I’ve gotten to know a man, and if it is what Steve King tells me versus what the front page of the New York Times tells me what he actually said, I’ll take Steve King’s word over what some fake reporter has said without an iota of proof attached to it.
But the Post reporter was not done. “Do you condemn white supremacy and white nationalism?” she asked, prompting Ramaswamy to ask who’s she with — and then to repeat back the answer, “Washington Post … So potato, potahto.”
Ramaswamy continued:
Of course, I condemn any form of vicious racial discrimination in this country, but I think that the presumption of your question is fundamentally based on a falsehood that that really is the main form of racial discrimination we see in this country today. Institutionalized racism is institutionalized racial discrimination that we see, that doesn’t come from somehow discriminating against people on the basis of some tenet of white supremacy. It’s based on affirmative action; it’s based on actually discriminating against people on the color of their skin in a way that’s actually institutionalized today. Was there a point in our history, a point in our prior national history, where there have been vicious forms of anti-black or anti-brown discrimination throughout this country, after the Civil War and otherwise? Yes. But you’re looking in the rearview mirror and using that to pose a question today that is so far removed from what the reality is in America today. This myth of white supremacy, the closest you can find is Jussie Smollett, where you all were actually, speaking of trust in the media, jumping up and down over some false narrative. The best way you’re able to find your best instance of white supremacy was a guy who was actually paying his other fellow people to be actually staging something that didn’t happen. And so stop picking on this farce of some figment of that exists at some infinitesimally small fringe of the American public today to open our eyes to the actual real threats that we face. And I think that it’s frankly questions and framings like that that has caused the American public to lose all trust in the mainstream media, I’m sorry to say for a good reason.
But the Post reporter still was not done. “You didn’t say that you condemn white supremacy though.”
Ramaswamy answered:
I’m not going to recite some catechism for you. I’m against vicious racial discrimination in this country. I’m not pledging allegiance to your new religion of modern wokeism, which actually fits the test. I’m not going to bend the knee to your religion. I’m sorry, I’m not asking you to bend a knee to mine and I’m not going to bend a knee to yours. But do I condemn vicious racial discrimination? Yes I do. Am I going to play your silly game of gotcha? No I’m not.
Ramaswamy also predicted:
I know you’re going to go print the headline tomorrow, I already know this; we already know how your game works, “Vivek Ramaswamy Refuses to Condemn White Supremacy.” Because you asked a stupid question. The reality is, I condemn vicious racial discrimination in this country, but the kind of vicious and systematic racial discrimination we see today is discrimination on the basis of race in a very different direction.”
Later in the week, the Post published this headline: “Ramaswamy increasingly embraces fringe theories, far-right claims in Iowa.” What Ramaswamy forecasted the Post would say may not have been in the headline itself, but it was in the first two sentences of the article: “At a campaign event this week, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy touted an endorsement by a disgraced former congressman who lost his election after defending white nationalism. He refused to directly condemn white supremacy.”
Oh my.
But let’s look now at what The New York Times claims Congressman Steve King said about white nationalism and white supremacy, as well as King’s response to how the Times had quoted him.
On January 10, 2019, The Times published an article about King titled “Before Trump, Steve King Set the Agenda for the Wall and Anti-Immigrant Politics.” That article quoted King saying:
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” Mr. King said. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”
Here’s a statement from King saying that this quote was “completely mischaracterized”:
One of my quotes in a New York Times story has been completely mischaracterized. Here’s the context I believe accurately reflects my statement.
In a 56 minute-interview, we discussed the changing use of language in political discourse. We discussed the worn out label “racist” and my observation that other slanderous labels have been increasingly assigned to Conservatives by the Left, who injected into our current political dialog such terms as Nazi, Fascist, ‘White Nationalist, White Supremacist,— Western Civilization, how did THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?’… Just to watch Western Civilization become a derogatory term in political discourse today. Clearly, I was only referencing Western Civilization classes. No one ever sat in a class listening to the merits of white nationalism and white supremacy.
When I used the word ‘THAT’ it was in reference ONLY to Western Civilization and NOT to any previously stated evil ideology ALL of which I have denounced. My record as a vocal advocate for Western Civilization is nearly as full as my record in defense of Freedom of Speech.
King’s explanation makes perfect sense. Unless of course we are to believe — as perhaps the Left wants us to believe — that Americans such as King have sat in classes “listening to the merits of white nationalism and white supremacy.” What hogwash!
Back to Ramaswamy. In his response to the Washington Post reporter seeking her gotcha moment, he also had this to say, addressing his comments specifically to the media:
Do you want to know what the best way is to end discrimination on the basis of race? Stop discriminating on the basis of race. Do that, and we’re going to move this country forward, and I don’t care whether you’re black or white or brown or anything in-between. That’s how we’re going to unite this country. You people have been responsible for dividing this country to a breaking point, creating a projection of national division. I meet people, from the south side of Chicago to meetings like this one, of every shade of melanin … who are hungry for reviving unity in this country. And you with your catechism … to whatever fake headline you’re going to print on the basis of this conversation tomorrow, that is what is dividing this country to a breaking point. Shame on you. Look people in the eye and tell them what you have actually failed to tell them for the past five years, own the accountability for your own failures as the media. That’s how we rebuild trust in this country. And until then, I don’t have a lot of patience to play the games.
Don’t hold your breath though, for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other organs of Fake News to come clean.
