Steve King said Muslims shouldn't work in pork plants in his Iowa district

Brianne Pfannenstiel | The Des Moines Register

U.S. Rep. Steve King said in a radio interview Friday he doesn't want Somali Muslims working in meat packing plants in his district.

In a conversation with Breitbart News Daily, King discussed an immigration bill in Congress and referred to Somali immigrants working in pork processing plants. He said he questioned whether those workers would handle pork and that he had discussed the issue with Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. — a man whom King referred to as the "lead Muslim in Congress."

According to King, Ellison told him that Muslims would require "a special dispensation" from an imam before they could handle pork.

King has previously questioned Ellison's loyalty to the Constitution. Ellison, who is now running for attorney general in Minnesota, has said King has said "incredibly ignorant" things. Ellison, of Minneapolis, was the only Muslim member of Congress when he was first elected in 2006.

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"The rationale is that if infidels are eating this pork, [Muslims] are not eating it," King said. "So as long as they’re preparing this pork for infidels, it helps send them to hell and it must make Allah happy. I don’t want people doing my pork that won’t eat it, let alone hope I go to hell for eating pork chops."

King's northwest Iowa district includes large pork packing facilities, including a new plant in Sioux City and a plant Storm Lake. Iowa is the nation's largest pork producer.

But the number of workers of Somali origin in those meat processing plants is tiny — less than one third of one percent, if that, according to an analysis from Liesl Eathington, an economist with Iowa State University. Eathington used University of Minnesota's analysis of Census data to make the calculation for the Des Moines Register.

King has a history of making inflammatory remarks and just last week faced condemnation for recirculating a tweet from Mark Collett, a well known white supremacist in Britain.

More: Iowa Republican Steve King's retweet of prominent Nazi sympathizer sparks controversy

King retweeted the post with the comment: "Europe is waking up...Will America...in time?"

Gov. Kim Reynolds said during a taping of Iowa Press Friday afternoon that "I absolutely don’t agree with" King's comments about Somali immigrants.

King serves as a co-chair of Reynolds' 2018 re-election campaign. She previously has declined to remove King from that position when he's made other inflammatory remarks, and she declined again to do so on Friday.

She said King is one of 4,000 "honorary" chairs of her campaign, including the other Republican members of Iowa's Congressional delegation.

"He is not involved in policy or issues that we’re working on," Reynolds said. "And the fact of the matter is he does represent over a fourth of the state ... So we’re not going to agree on everything. I make it clear when asked where I stand on specific issues and I’ll continue to do that."