The Republican congressman Steve King, who has a history of making racist remarks, has received severe condemnation from Democrats and his own party for belittling the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

At a town hall on Thursday, King suggested residents of New Orleans hit by the 2005 storm that devastated the majority black city sat around waiting for government help, by contrast with residents of Iowa – King’s home state – who have been hit by recent flooding.

King said: “Here’s what Fema tells me. We go to a place like New Orleans, and everybody’s looking around saying, ‘Who’s going to help me? Who’s going to help me?’”

“We go to a place like Iowa, and we go, we go see, knock on the door at, say, I’ll make up a name, John’s place, and say, ‘John, you got water in your basement, we can write you a check, we can help you.’ And John will say, ‘Well, wait a minute, let me get my boots. It’s Joe that needs help. Let’s go down to his place and help him.’

He added: “Iowans take care of each other.”

Democratic Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond attacked King for racism. “My heart goes out to all Iowans. Though it unsettles me that Steve King would dare compare them to the countless victims of Katrina, many of whom lost their lives. When people show you who they are, believe them. Steve King is a white supremacist and I won’t stand for it,” he tweeted.

The Democratic governor of Louisiana John Bel Edwards also condemned him. “These comments are disgusting and disheartening. When communities are affected by disasters, we come together to help each other, not tear each other down,” he said on Twitter.

House minority whip Steve Scalise, a top Republican who represents a part of New Orleans, told CNN that King’s comments were absurd and offensive.

“His comments about Katrina victims are absurd and offensive, and are a complete contradiction to the strength and resilience the people of New Orleans demonstrated to the entire nation in the wake of the total devastation they experienced,” Scalise told the Advocate newspaper.

The Advocate added that King’s district in Iowa is about 95% white and about 67% of the population of the city of New Orleans was black when Katrina hit.

King was recently stripped of his committee assignments for comments about white supremacy. In an interview with the New York Times King had said “white nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization – how did that language become offensive?”

They were far from his first controversial comments having previously endorsed a white nationalist candidate for Toronto mayor and compared immigrants to dirt, among other statements that have been widely condemned as racist.