IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 789 
Raising a question of the privileges of the House. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 10, 2020 
Mr. KING of Iowa submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on House Administration 
RESOLUTION 
Raising a question of the privileges of the House. 
Whereas in a quote attributed to him by the New York 
Times, Congressman King is alleged to have wondered 
when the phrases ‘‘White nationalist, white supremacist, 
Western Civilization’’ became offensive, suggesting to 
some that he does not view the first two terms as pejo-
rative; 
Whereas Congressman King has consistently disputed this in-
terpretation, maintaining that he was simply trying to 
ask when the phrase ‘‘Western Civilization’’ had gained 
a pejorative connotation, an assertion that is supported 
by the remaining section of the Times quote; 
Whereas Congressman King says the conversation in which 
this quote is alleged to happen was about the left’s use 
of weaponized language: ‘‘we discussed the changing use 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
of language in political discourse. We discussed the worn 
out label ‘racist’ and my observation that other slan-
derous labels have been increasingly assigned to Conserv-
atives by the Left, who injected into our current political 
dialog such terms as Nazi, Fascist, ‘White Nationalist, 
White Supremacist,—Western Civilization, how did 
THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in class-
es teaching me about the merits of our history and our 
civilization?’ . . . just to watch Western Civilization be-
come a derogatory term in political discourse today.’’; 
Whereas notably, none of the context of the discussion which 
spawned the ‘‘quote’’ was included in the New York 
Times story. This context would have added greater clar-
ity to King’s reported remarks, revealing that his inten-
tion was to question the inclusion of ‘‘WESTERN CIV-
ILIZATION’’ alone as a pejorative; 
Whereas no tape of the interview with the New York Times 
exists and the paper refuses to release the reporter’s 
notes of the conversation; 
Whereas the question that Congressman King is purported to 
have been responding to has not been disclosed and nei-
ther the New York Times nor the reporter has answered 
whether the question posed included the two odious 
ideologies that were then alleged in the response, logically 
leading the Congressman to repeat back the ideologies as 
they had been first posed by the reporter; 
Whereas the structure of the purported quote contextually 
only makes sense if the reporter did in fact refer to those 
odious ideologies in the question posed, in so doing lead-
ing Congressman King to repeat them back as he pon-
dered the question that was asked of him; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
Whereas the content of the Times ‘‘quote’’ makes it clear 
that King was ONLY talking about ‘‘Western Civiliza-
tion’’. The ‘‘quote’’: ‘‘White Nationalist, white Suprema-
cist, Western civilization—how did THAT language be-
come offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me 
about the merits of our history and our civilization?’’; 
Whereas NOBODY IN AMERICA EVER SAT IN A CLASS 
about the merits of White nationalism or White 
supremacism. The incorrect interpretation that has been 
given to this ‘‘quote’’ refutes itself based on the ‘‘quoted’’ 
sentence’s own construction; 
Whereas, on January 18th, 2019, Mark Steyn was quoted as 
saying ‘‘He made a mistake, Steve King. He agreed to 
give an interview on national immigration policy to the 
New York Times. That’s not a good faith interview re-
quest. They’re only asking you, and he should know this, 
they’re only asking you to stitch you up. To talk to you 
for three hours and get you to use one phrase in there 
that they can lift out and kill you with . . . This guy, 
Steve King, was trapped, trapped! The words he said 
about ‘when did that become controversial’, he meant the 
phrase ‘Western Civilization’. He’s not a white suprema-
cist. He’s not a white nationalist. It’s all stupid talk. So 
you’ve just surrendered the phrase ‘Western Civilization’. 
I don’t get that. I don’t see what’s in it for conservatism 
in surrendering that phrase, in accepting the leftist’s view 
that the term ‘Western Civilization’ is beyond the pale.’’; 
Whereas contemporaneous evidence supports King’s version 
of the story: In a Christian Science Monitor (CSM) arti-
cle published on January 15, 2019 (5 days after the 
Times story broke), King is quoted making a similar ar-
gument: ‘‘In a conversation with the Monitor just before 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
the holidays, King defended himself against accusations 
of racism. The left, he says, has weaponized terms like 
‘racist’, ‘Nazi’ and ‘white nationalist’ using them against 
anyone who dares to defend American values or the Con-
stitution. ‘There are people that don’t like America the 
way it is’, he says, ‘and there are people that don’t like 
America when she was at her best. They want to tear 
down the systems we have. I don’t believe that. I think 
our Founding Fathers got it right.’.’’; 
Whereas this CSM interview occurred prior to the release of 
the Times article, and shows how King had been making 
a variation of this argument at the approximate time he 
spoke to the Times reporter. In this case, though, the 
CSM actually published it in the context in which it was 
made. It is clear that King was making a similar argu-
ment to the Times; 
Whereas the quote in the CSM is the FIRST DOCU-
MENTED INSTANCE of Steve King ever using the 
phrase ‘‘white nationalist’’. This is an important point, 
because King has asserted ‘‘That ideology never shows up 
in my head. I don’t know how it could possibly come out 
of my mouth.’’. A Lexis-Nexis search dating back to 
2000 shows King has never used any of the following 
phrases: ‘‘white nationalism’’, ‘‘white nationalist’’, ‘‘white 
supremacist’’, or ‘‘white supremacy’’. In the same time 
frame, King is quoted 276 times using the term ‘‘West-
ern Civilization’’; 
Whereas based on this data, it appears unlikely that King 
spontaneously used the phrases ‘‘white nationalist’’ and 
‘‘white supremacist’’ in his discussion with the Times re-
porter, as they were never common elements of his 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
speech. It suggests that King was repeating terms fed to 
him by the Times; 
Whereas the contention that King reacted to the Times re-
porter’s use of the phrases ‘‘white nationalist’’, ‘‘white 
supremacist’’, and ‘‘western civilization’’ as pejoratives is 
supported by the body of the Times article itself; 
Whereas the article contains the following passage, likely 
written prior to the King interview: ‘‘Elected to Congress 
in 2002, Mr. King attracted the attention of hate-watch 
groups like the Anti-Defamation League as he spoke in-
creasingly about preserving ‘Western Culture’ or ‘West-
ern Civilization’. The groups consider those buzzwords 
that signal support to white nationalists, along with an 
obsession with birthrates and abortion rates among dif-
ferent ethnic groups.’’ Doesn’t it make more sense that 
the reporter asked a question in which ‘‘Western Civiliza-
tion’’ was linked with the offensive epithets, and King re-
sponded by wondering how it came to be that the meri-
torious phrase ‘‘Western Civilization’’ became a similar 
pejorative? Certainly, the answer he is alleged to have 
given fits with this belief; 
Whereas the point King was attempting to make about the 
left’s use of labels to smear conservatives, labels which 
now include even the concept of ‘‘Western Civilization’’ 
itself, is supported by Lexis-Nexis data. Beginning in 
2016 there has been an explosive increase in the use of 
the labels ‘‘White Supremacist’’, ‘‘White Supremacy’’, 
‘‘White Nationalist’’, and ‘‘White Nationalism’’. This 
squares closely with what Congressman King told Dave 
Price of WHO–TV regarding the phrase ‘‘White Nation-
alist’’: ‘‘It is a derogatory term today. I wouldn’t have 
thought so maybe a year or two or three ago. Today they 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
use it as a derogatory term, and it implies that you are 
a racist.’’; 
Whereas in his statement, King was trying to put into words 
his entirely accurate observation that the term ‘‘white na-
tionalist’’ has been weaponized by the left against con-
servatives, and that its use in this form has markedly in-
creased over the past several years; 
Whereas King’s point about the increased frequency with 
which the weaponized term ‘‘white nationalist’’ has been 
injected into modern political dialogue is evident when 
data from a Lexis-Nexis News Database search is ana-
lyzed and we learn that White nationalist was virtually 
an unused term prior to 2016, and quickly surged to 
31,057 usages in the year 2017; 
Whereas as King told Price, it has only been in the last ‘‘year 
or two or three’’ that the pejorative phrase ‘‘white nation-
alist’’ has gained purchase in the political debate as a 
weaponized term; 
Whereas a follow up New York Times story about Steve King 
entitled ‘‘A Timeline of Steve King’s Racist Remarks and 
Divisive Actions’’ was criticized by legendary journalist 
Brit Hume as being ‘‘completely bogus’’. This ‘‘com-
pletely bogus’’ story was written the next day by the 
same writer, in the same paper, on the same general 
topic, and could possibly be revealing of a bias regarding 
Congressman King; 
Whereas the Congressional Record made the exact same error 
as the New York Times in transcribing King’s January 
15, 2019, floor statement, when the transcriptionist left 
out a break between the words ‘‘white supremacist’’ and 
‘‘western civilization’’. Video shows King intentionally in-
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00006
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
serting a break between those words, but the transcript 
does not reflect this; 
Whereas no one believes the Congressional Record was acting 
with animus. But their error did reveal how either a simi-
lar error, or an intentional misplacement of punctuation, 
could have led to a botched quote in the Times. Remem-
ber, King has always disputed the quote as it was por-
trayed in the Times; 
Whereas King is insisting upon a correction in the Congres-
sional Record so that it reflects the quote as he inten-
tionally delivered it on the House floor. King’s correction 
reveals that he was attempting to separate ‘‘Western Civ-
ilization’’ from the other two pejorative terms; 
Whereas this is the New York Times/Congressional Record’s 
mistaken quote: ‘‘White Nationalist, White Supremacist, 
Western Civilization—how did THAT language become 
offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the 
merits of our history and our civilization?’’; 
Whereas this is the corrected quote: ‘‘White Nationalist, 
White Supremacist,—Western Civilization, how did 
THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in class-
es teaching me about the merits of our history and our 
civilization?’’; 
Whereas one misplaced hyphen in the New York Times story 
gave birth to a meritless controversy, by falsely implying 
that Congressman King did not differentiate between the 
three phrases; 
Whereas Congressman King was railroaded over a false 
quote. To believe the version of events relied upon by 
Kevin McCarthy to strip King of committee assignments, 
one must believe that an unreasonable but ‘‘sensational’’ 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00007
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 789 IH 
interpretation, for which no evidence exists, is more likely 
to be accurate than a reasonable, ‘‘noncontroversial’’ in-
terpretation which is internally supported by context 
clues and externally supported by data and other contem-
poraneous, published accounts. One must also believe 
that the New York Times, a hostile, liberal paper which 
has had other articles about Congressman Steve King 
written by the same author thoroughly debunked as 
‘‘completely bogus’’, set aside its animus in this par-
ticular case; 
Whereas clause 1 of rule IX defines questions of privileges of 
the House as ‘‘those affecting the rights of the House 
collectively, its safety, dignity, and the integrity of its 
proceedings.’’. Subjects giving rise to questions of the 
privileges of the House include the integrity of the Jour-
nal, the protection of House records and files, and the ac-
curacy of House documents and records; and 
Whereas the mistaken quote, as also mistakenly recorded in 
the Congressional Record, reflects directly on both the 
House’s dignity and integrity: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Representa-
tives shall correct the Congressional Record from January 
15, 2019, online and in print, to reflect what was origi-
nally stated and then reiterated on the House floor: 
‘‘White Nationalist, White Supremacist,—Western Civili-
zation, how did THAT language become offensive? Why 
did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our 
history and our civilization?’’. 
Æ 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
20:18 Jan 13, 2020
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00008
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6301
E:\BILLS\HR789.IH
HR789
jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with BILLS