WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) arrived early at the “America First Dinner with President Donald J. Trump” on Tuesday. It was a little after 3 p.m., and only a few dozen of the evening’s expected 700 conservatives and Trump supporters were inside the Ron Pearson Center in West Des Moines, all eager to sit down to a (minimum) $250-a-plate private fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party. King, who was accompanied by his son and campaign manager, Jeff King, immediately greeted some familiar faces, all men in suits. The group chatted and laughed together. Nearby, 64-year-old Jean Stanford stood with her husband. “I love Steve King,” said Stanford, who chairs the Mahaska County Republicans. “I can’t vote for him,” she said, noting that King isn’t her congressman, “but I wrote him a check for $2,700.” Stanford added that she and her husband planned on writing King another $2,700 check for his reelection campaign. Only five months ago, King condoned white supremacy in an interview with The New York Times. “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” he said. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

Christopher Mathias / HuffPost Jean Stanford, right, with her husband, John, at an Iowa GOP fundraiser in West Des Moines, Iowa, on June 11, 2019.

In response, Republican leadership in the House punished King, taking the rare step of stripping him of his committee assignments. King’s longtime allies in Iowa also appeared to abandon him. The comments were “offensive and racist,” Sen. Joni Ernst said at the time. “I condemn it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said, “I just hope he is doing some serious reflection on what is best for the people of the 4th District.” On Tuesday, CNN, citing two GOP sources, reported that officials in the Trump administration rejected a request from the congressman to fly aboard Air Force One with the president to Iowa. CNN’s report didn’t elaborate on why the administration rejected the request. (Trump himself has never condemned King’s white nationalist remarks.) But at the fundraiser in West Des Moines on Tuesday evening, King didn’t look like a political pariah. Rather, Iowa Republicans appeared to welcome the nine-term congressman with open arms, raising the prospect that King, whose political future very recently seemed in doubt, could be making a comeback. The Iowa Republican Party invited King to Tuesday’s fundraiser, where Trump was the marquee speaker. “All Iowa elected GOP officials have been extended an invitation to this private, party fundraiser,” said state party spokesman Aaron Britt, when asked whether it was appropriate for a bigot like King to attend. Stanford, the chair of the Mahaska County Republicans, told HuffPost she believed King’s comments to the Times were “misrepresented.” “He did not say, in my opinion, what he was quoted as saying, and it bothers me that people believe it,” Stanford said, adding that she believed King “was set up.” “I don’t know by who or for what reason.” King has repeatedly made the dubious argument that he was misquoted by the Times, and that his comments were then deliberately misinterpreted by the mainstream media. It’s a claim that was echoed by many of the Republicans at Tuesdays’ fundraiser. Iowa state Rep. Jon Jacobsen (R-Council Bluffs) said King has indicated “that he was not quoted correctly. And it had to do with even some pauses in the sentence structure and things like that.” “I’m inclined,” Jacobsen told HuffPost, to give King “the benefit of the doubt.” But giving King the benefit of the doubt doesn’t explain away the other time the congressman clearly condoned white nationalism, in a much less publicized October interview with an Iowa TV station. (The term “white nationalist,” King said, “is a derogatory term today. I wouldn’t have thought so maybe a year, or two, or three ago.”) And even since being stripped of his committee assignments, King has still continued to express support for white nationalist figures and ideas. In just the past few months the congressman has promoted an avowed white supremacist on Twitter; continued to use his official House.gov website to promote an explicitly white supremacist blog; shared a violent and transphobic meme on Facebook; told a town hall that all cultures do not “contribute equally” to “our civilization”; and disparaged victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans — read: black people — as overly dependent on government aid. “He’s in the spotlight so people are gonna find every word he says,” Travis Klinefelter, a 42-year-old nurse and Trump superfan from Dubuque, Iowa, told HuffPost while smoking a cigarette outside Tuesday’s fundraiser. “I’m sure everybody has said something about someone that can be taken the wrong way, and with the camera on you, you’re under a microscope,” Klinefelter said. This, too, is the Trumpian narrative King has pushed: that he is a brave truth-teller under siege by a fake news media intent on misrepresenting his statements in order to destroy him.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Trump steps off Air Force One with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on June 11, 2019. Rep. Steve King, once a close ally of both politicians, reportedly wasn't allowed to travel on the plane.