The Atlantic

Steve King's Improbable Ascendance

Leading Republicans used to be able to write the Iowan off as an extremist outsider. He’s still an extremist, but it’s harder to see him as an outsider in the age of Trump.
Source: Chris Keane / Reuters

Updated March 13, 2017 at 2:08 p.m.

Steve King has always made a habit of speaking his mind, and quite frequently his mind has been controversial, blatantly false, or outright racist.

The Republican congressman from Iowa is the man who said in 2013 that while some children brought to the U.S. illegally were good kids, there were others “who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

That may have been his most famous moment, but it was hardly alone. He called Barack Obama “.” He disregarded abuses at Abu Ghraib prison as “.” He argued, without any evidence, that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had dangerous to the Muslim

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