King stands by Obama ‘favors the black person’ comment because ‘it’s factual’

In an interview with Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson, U.S. Rep. Steve King said he has no regrets about what he said about President Barack Obama having a “default mechanism” that “favors the black person.”

“I have no regrets about what I said. I stand by what I said because what I said is accurate.  It’s factual,” King said during a telephone interview with Radio Iowa late this afternoon. “I think the president should answer and Attorney General Holder should answer for the justice department being used in the way it is, but what I said was accurate and it was objective.”

During an interview on G. Gordon Liddy’s national radio program, King said the president has “demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race – on the side that favors the black person.” Following his remarks, a Republican congressional candidate and a tea party group canceled events with King this weekend.

King blamed the controversy on “professional hyperventilators” who are always “trying to find something that they can twist or embellish.” He later told Henderson that because he felt “American people need to have this debate,” he purposefully waited to respond to the outrage in order to “let this cook for a couple of days and see if this pot will come to a boil.”

In an interview with the D.C. website Politico, King said that although he feels the quote was intentionally taken out of context, he will be “looking for every opportunity I can to embellish the point I made.”

His point, as the congressman stated it, is that “the president and the administration have a policy on race that breaks to the minority.”