(JTA) — Steve King, Republican lawmaker from Iowa, shared a tweet by a prominent British neo-Nazi.
On Tuesday, King shared a tweet by British political activist Mark Collett that showed that 65 percent of Italians under 35 opposed massed immigration. “Europe is waking up…Will America…in time?” King wrote about Collett’s tweet.
Collett has called himself a “Nazi sympathizer” and said he admires Adolf Hitler.
King’s tweet drew criticism, including by the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt.
“Extremely concerning that a sitting Member of Congress felt it appropriate to [retweet] a known anti-Semite & someone associated w/ neo-Nazis. A disappointing continuation of Rep. King’s propensity to engage in inflammatory, bigoted rhetoric on & off Twitter,” Greenblatt tweeted on Wednesday.
King has a history of speaking harshly about immigration and multiculturalism and sharing far-right opinions on Twitter. Last year, King endorsed Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders by tweeting, “Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” Chelsea Clinton slammed that tweet, saying ti was “particularly ironic & painful” that it was sent on the Jewish holiday of Purim.
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