GOP conference chair calls Steve King's comments "abhorrent and racist"

House Republican conference chair Liz Cheney condemned remarks made by her GOP colleague Steve King Thursday as "abhorrent" and "racist," and said they "should have no place in our national discourse."

The backdrop: In a New York Times article about his hard-line views on immigration, King was quoted as saying, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” After the article was published, King issued a statement rejecting the notion that he's a racist, claiming that he considers himself "simply a nationalist" and an advocate for Western values.