When Iowa representative Steve King questioned how “white supremacy” and “white nationalism” became offensive terms, the nine-term Republican congressman was overwhelmingly rebuked by members of his own party.

King, whose longstanding nativist views were well documented, was stripped of his committee assignments in Washington, and swiftly became the target of a Super Pac launched by Iowa Republicans with the goal of unseating him in 2020.

But the Republican response to King also exposed uncomfortable truths about the party’s penchant for attracting white nationalists: the individual most championed by the latter’s movement resides in the White House.

“In many respects, Steve King was the easier target to go after. The harder target is Donald Trump,” said Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican national committee.

“We have had now three years of Donald Trump, as candidate for president and as president, espousing very similar views,” he added.

Trump, much like King, has made sharp anti-immigrant sentiment central to his platform.

The president has repeatedly linked immigrants to violent crime, despite studies showing otherwise, and pursued a draconian immigration agenda that has sped up the deportation of undocumented immigrants and separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

As a candidate, Trump infamously declared that most immigrants crossing the southern border were “rapists” and criminals, and pledged to ban all Muslims from entering the US.

Donald Trump signs an executive order banning refugees and travelers from Muslim countries from entering the US. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

In one of his most controversial moments since taking office, Trump blamed “both sides” after a white nationalist drove his car into counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring several on 12 August 2017. Trump’s statement was widely denounced for drawing an equivalence between white nationalists with counter-protesters on the left.

“If you were to ask the most uncomfortable question to a Republican in DC today, it’s that the things King said are the exact equivalent of what Trump said. Now what?” said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and author of the book Everything Trump Touches Dies.

Wilson is the producer and creative consultant for Americans Values Pac, a Super Pac that ran ads against King in the 2018 midterms, and said white supremacist groups claimed Trump as one of their own in the same way they did King.

“It leaves them in a very dark place justifying their support for a president who has many, many beliefs that are very, very racist,” he said.

King’s own latest comments were far from the first time he spoke of immigrants and minorities in derogatory terms.

The congressman has likened immigrants to “dirt” and “dogs”, claimed most Dreamers were smuggling drugs across the border, and suggested American civilization could not be restored “with somebody else’s babies”. King also displayed a Confederate flag on his office desk, retweeted Nazis and argued that Somali Muslims should not be allowed to work in meatpacking plants in his district.

In some instances, Republicans in Congress condemned King’s rhetoric; but on others occasions, it was implied that he misspoke or was ignored entirely.

Tim Scott, the Senate’s lone black Republican wrote in an op-ed: ‘Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism – it is because of our silence when things like this are said.’ Photograph: CHRIS KLEPONIS/POOL/EPA

Tim Scott, the Senate’s lone black Republican, penned an op-ed last week urging his peers to purge King and likeminded voices from the party.

“Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism – it is because of our silence when things like this are said,” Scott wrote.

At least one Republican congressman, Louie Gohmert of Texas, rose up in King’s defense last week.

“[King] was talking about Western civilization, that, ‘When did Western civilization become a negative?’ and that’s a fair question. When did Western civilization become a negative?” Gohmert told his hometown paper, the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

Louie Gohmert degended Iowa representative Steve King’s statements about white nationalism and white supremacy. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Although he condemned white supremacy, Gohmert insisted King had been treated in a manner that was “grossly unfair”.

And in the same week that King was disavowed by his colleagues, two House Republicans met with Chuck Johnson, a known white nationalist and Holocaust denier.

An image of representatives Andy Harris, of Maryland, and Phil Roe, of Tennessee, walking through the corridors of Capitol Hill was widely circulated on social media.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that Chuck C. Johnson walking with Reps. Phil Roe and Andy Harris?



Both waited for him to get through security. pic.twitter.com/ybfdK8Bwqy — Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 16, 2019

A spokesman for Roe said the congressman “would not have taken the meeting had he been aware of Mr Johnson’s previously expressed views”. Harris’s office similarly claimed they did not know of Johnson’s past statements, which include questioning how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust and raising money for neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Wilson said many Republicans in Congress were reluctant to weed out those associated with white nationalist groups entirely, because they ultimately relied on them for votes.

“There’s a certain degree of winking tolerance that’s been built up with a lot of these Trump guys where they know there’s a crazy, racist uncle in the basement,” he said.

“They don’t want to admit it out in public, but they sure know that he’s there.”