(CNN) Rep. Steve King, the anti-immigration hardliner, said Tuesday he didn't realize he retweeted a message from a self-described Nazi sympathizer who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

But King told CNN he wasn't sorry for unintentionally sharing the tweet and pointedly refused to delete the message.

Asked why he wouldn't delete a message from someone who has praised Nazi Germany, King said: "Because then it'd be like I'm admitting that I did something, now I'm sorry about it. I'm not sorry. I'm human."

In an interview just off the House floor, King also espoused his own hard-line immigration views, saying that the US is a "Judeo-Christian country" and immigrants need to embrace "Americanism" and "not create enclaves in America that are the antithesis of Americanism." He said he had no opinion on whether the United States should allow more European immigrants into the United States than from Asian, African or Middle Eastern countries.

"I want to see the American civilization strengthened," King said. "That means we are a Judeo-Christian country, and we could not have succeeded without our Founding Fathers' (knowing) that."

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