Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.), the third-ranking House Republican, on Tuesday said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) should step down after he questioned why the term “white supremacist” was considered offensive.

“I think he should find another line of work,” Cheney told reporters. “His language questioning whether or not the notion of white supremacy is offensive is absolutely abhorrent, it’s racist, we do not support it or agree with it.”

She said she agrees with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who on Sunday called King’s remarks to The New York Times “unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position.”

Rep. Liz Cheney on Rep. Steve King: "His language questioning whether or not the notion of white supremacy is offensive is absolutely abhorrent, it's racist, we do not support it or agree with it. And as I said, I think he should find another line of work" https://t.co/ETuQU8wu8j pic.twitter.com/4vBYWoLI8M — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 15, 2019

House Republicans stripped King of congressional committee assignments on Monday in response to the veteran lawmaker’s remarks. King had served on the House committees on agriculture, the judiciary and small business.

A representative for King did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

In an interview with the Times published last week, King said he’s OK with immigrants of various races legally entering the U.S. ― as long as American culture stays white and European.

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King, 69, told the newspaper. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

Following backlash from both sides of the aisle, King issued a statement calling himself a “nationalist” who supports “western civilization’s values.” He said he rejected the “labels” of white nationalism and white supremacy, as well as “the evil ideology they define.”

King issued a follow-up statement after being removed from congressional committees, claiming the Times had “mischaracterized” his comments.

But as HuffPost’s Chris Mathias has previously reported, King has a long history of bigotry that includes espousing anti-Muslim viewpoints, endorsing white supremacists and retweeting neo-Nazis. He told an Austrian outlet last year that he considered mass immigration into the U.S. to be “slow-motion cultural suicide.”

This article has been updated with statements from King.