His confused interlocutor pressed him to find out more:

Cuomo: Hold on a second. Congressman, if you suggest that somebody else's babies shouldn't be welcome in a country, you seem inherently divisive. That's why I keep to seem doubling down on it. You say America has different faces, that's fine. You keep making this point that this country needs to be about white people raising their birth rate and not bringing in other people. That's exactly what America is not.



King: Chris, I never have made that point. I've never said that. I've been characterized as saying that. I've had the blogs out there say I said that. I tell them go, back, watch the tape, listen to the language. Our language is precise. That's not out there. I did defend Western civilization, starting this summer at the Republican National Convention.

And when I said Western civilization, that launched people opposed to Western civilization. That's a big problem. If we have an element of Americans here that reject Western civilization, and that's a big element, that reject Western civilization, then what have we? This is an effort on the left, I think, to break down the American civilization and the American culture and turn it into something entirely different. I'm a champion for Western civilization and, yes, our English language is a big part of it.

It's a carrier of freedom. Wherever the English language has gone globally, freedom went with it. Science, technology has always lifted up the standard of living on average of everybody on the planet. I want more of that, not less. There are civilizations that produce very little, if any. This Western civilization is a superior civilization, and we want to share it with everybody.



Cuomo: You're entitled to your opinion about all these things obviously. I want to go back at this one more time because it's that important. A Muslim American, an Italian American, A Christian American, Jewish American, you do realize that they are all equal, all the same thing. We don't need babies from one of those groups more than we need them from another of those groups. Do you agree with me?

King: Well I would say ...



Cuomo: Why do you pause on a question like that, Congressman? It doesn't depend on any definition. You're either an American or not. Muslim American, Italian American, Irish, Scotch, German American which is what your roots are. Either those are all equal things or they are not. What is your answer?



King: They contribute differently to our culture and civilization. There are moderate Muslims that are equal to in all these ...



Cuomo: I said a Muslim American, people who have lived here who are assimilated. There are a lot of people teaching hatred in their families who are white, Irish, Italian, who are Muslim. A lot of people preach hate.

There's hate in a lot of different groups. I get you have Muslim extremism, that there's a concern in this country about it. But I asked you something else. These people are either all equal or they are not in your view. A Muslim American, an Italian American, German American like you and your blood, your roots. They are either all equal or they are not in your mind.

What is the answer?



King: I'd say they're all created in the image of God and they're equal in his eyes. If they're citizens of the United States they're equal in the eyes of the law. Individuals will contribute differently, not equally to this civilization and society. Certain groups of people will do more from a productive side than other groups of people will. That's just a statistical fact.