Steve King: Blacks and Hispanics 'will be fighting each other' before overtaking whites in population

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Posted: Mar 14, 2017 3:36 PM EDT | Updated: Mar 14, 2017 3:37 PM EDT

By Chris Massie CNN

(CNN) -- Iowa Rep. Steve King said Monday that blacks and Hispanics "will be fighting each other" before overtaking whites in the US population.

King, a Republican, was on the radio responding to a question about Univision anchor Jorge Ramos' comment to Tucker Carlson on Fox News that whites would become a majority-minority demographic in America by 2044, a point Ramos used to make the argument that it is a multiracial country.

"Jorge Ramos' stock in trade is identifying and trying to drive wedges between race," King told Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson on 1040 WHO. "Race and ethnicity, I should say to be more correct. When you start accentuating the differences, then you start ending up with people that are at each other's throats. And he's adding up Hispanics and blacks into what he predicts will be in greater number than whites in America. I will predict that Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before that happens."

King's prediction comes on the heels of a controversy the Iowa congressman spurred when he tweeted Sunday, "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

Those comments were praised by white nationalist and former KKK grand wizard David Duke and condemned by civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis, as "bigoted and racist."

In the interview on Iowa radio, King reiterated comments he made Monday to Chris Cuomo on CNN's "New Day," saying, "This isn't about race."

He said his comments were instead about "our stock, our country, our culture, our civilization," and that "we need to have enough babies to replace ourselves."

But King argued that others, such as Ramos, were "celebrating" the success of a plan to make whites a majority-minority.

"Their effort here is to be celebrating because the United States is moving towards becoming, the whites becoming a minority, a majority-minority within the country according to what their plan is," he said.

King concluded the interview by recommending that listeners read the novel, "The Camp of the Saints," by French author Jean Raspail, a book about Europe being overcome by immigrants which has also frequently been referenced by top Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The book has been criticized as presenting a racist view of immigration.