Congressman makes ‘white supremacist’ comment on live television at Republican convention

'Where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?’

Steve King encouraged viewers to 'read up on their history' (Getty)

A Republican politician at the party convention was caught out on live television making comments that appeared similar to white supremacist ideology.

After being accused by Esquire writer Charles Pierce of filling up the convention hall with “unhappy, dissatisfied white people”, Republican congressman of Iowa, Steve King, responded that “the whole ‘white people business' does get a little tired”.

“I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where have these contributions been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about," he said.

"Where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?"

MSNBC interviewer Chris Hayes asked: “Than white people?"

“Than—than western civilization itself, that’s rooted in western Europe, eastern Europe, and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world,” Mr King replied. “That’s all of western civilization.”

His comments come as the Republican convention kicks off this week, the same day that presumptive nominee Donald Trump and his wife Melania are set to speak.

Mr King was criticized last week after he told a local television station in Sioux City, Iowa, that he kept a Confederate flag on his desk.

He argued the flag had been sitting alongside an American and a Gadsden flag on his desk for a “long, long time”. He also said slavery was “a small part” of the Civil War.

“This is a free country and there’s freedom of speech,” he said. “And, by the way, I’d encourage people to go back and read the real history of the Civil War and find out what it was about. A small part of it was about slavery, but there was a big part of it that was about states’ rights, it was about people that defended their homeland and fought next to their neighbors and their family.”

Mr King has previously come under fire for claiming in December that Muslims who follow Shariah law are “incompatible with the United States constitution”.

He also proposed an amendment in June to keep slave-turned-activist and abolitionist Harriet Tubman off the new 20 dollar bill, blaming “liberal activism” for causing further division amongst Americans.

The House Rules Committee prevented a vote, however, which could have thwarted the Treasury’s plans.

Mr King could not be immediately reached for comment.