Vivek Ramaswamy says ex-Rep. Steve King, who was ostracized for his comments on white supremacy, was 'wrongfully villainized'

King was broadly rebuked by his own party for his comments on white supremacy and later lost reelection to a leadership-backed primary challenger.

• Former Rep. Steve King was ostracized from the GOP after his comments on white supremacy.
• But Vivek Ramaswamy's welcoming his endorsement anyway.
• It's the latest example of Ramaswamy doing extreme things to gin up support.

Vivek Ramaswamy is embracing the endorsement of Rep. Steve King ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the latest example of the 2024 presidential candidate's pattern of tacking towards the extremes.

King, a former Iowa congressman with a long history of racist and incendiary rhetoric, was finally ostracized from his own party after seemingly defending white supremacy in a 2019 interview with the New York Times.

"White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?" King said in that interview. "Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?"

King later said that he did not advocate for "white nationalism and white supremacy," but the damage was done.

He was quickly removed from his committee assignments by House GOP leadership, the House near-unanimously passed a resolution aimed at rebuking his comments, and he was later soundly defeated in a primary by now-Rep. Randy Feenstra, who had the backing of party leadership.

But when asked about those comments on Tuesday, Ramaswamy was dismissive, claiming King had been unfairly "villainized" and that media outlets hadn't properly quoted him.

"I'm proud to have Steve King's endorsement, and I think that he has been wrongfully villainized by a media that has not once quoted the alleged racist remark or whatever it is that he made," said Ramaswamy. "And I just reject a lot of this mainstream media narrative thing."

It's not the first time Ramaswamy, who continues to campaign despite failing to qualify for the next GOP debate, has embraced extremes in his quest for his party's nomination.

At the last GOP debate, he claimed that the "great replacement theory," a belief commonly held by white nationalists, was a "basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform."

Ramaswamy has also suggested that January 6 was perpetrated by federal agents and that the same may be true of the September 11 terrorist attacks.