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March 22 at 2:57 AM
Rep. Steve King, the Iowa Republican who has made a series of statements embracing white nationalism, on Thursday noted a contrast between the response of people in his state to spring flooding and the response of the residents of New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Speaking at a town hall in Charter Oak, Iowa, a city that is 99.4 percent white, according to census estimates, the nine-term congressman didn’t say what attributes explained the differing reactions. But racist tropes about African American dependence on the government echoed in the observations about New Orleans. The Crescent City maintains a black majority, though the community has shrunk since the disaster struck nearly 14 years ago.
"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?’” King said, recounting what he said officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had told him about the relief effort, in which he said he had participated. Yet, he was also one of 11 members of Congress to oppose a bill providing federal aid to Katrina victims in 2005.
In his home state, he said, residents looked after one another without government handouts. Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds has declared a disaster in more than half of Iowa’s 99 counties because of severe flooding and is seeking a federal declaration that would free up funds from Washington.
“We go to a place like Iowa, and we go see, knock on the door at, say, I 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,'" King said. “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.’”
King, who was stripped of his committee assignments in January over comments questioning whether the term “white supremacist” was offensive, said FEMA officials are “always gratified when they come and see how Iowans take care of each other.”
“We’re Iowans, and I’m always proud of our reaction to this,” he added, suggesting that his constituents displayed up-from-their-bootstraps grit in the face of environmental calamity, while the victims of Katrina — the deadliest storm to buffet the United States since the Okeechobee hurricane of 1928 — helplessly went in search of government assistance.
Katrina was responsible for an estimated 1,833 deaths, more than half of which were suffered by African Americans, according to data analysis by public health experts.
King then turned to discussing trade negotiations, which have major implications for his constituents. His district received more than $9 billion in federal farming subsidies between 1995 and 2017 — more than any other district in Iowa, which has received more subsidies than any other state in the nation.
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