'It was a political lynch mob': Steve King pledges to fight GOP over his exile

"I had to let the blood cool," King said in a rare interview Tuesday. "And the blood has now cooled, and now they don’t want to be faced with the reality of what they’ve done."

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) briefly stood up during a Republican conference meeting on Tuesday morning to urge his colleagues to reinstate King on the House Agriculture and Judiciary committees. But not a single lawmaker clapped, cheered or remarked on the request, according to several sources in the room, and lawmakers quickly moved on to the next issue.

GOP leaders, meanwhile, have made crystal clear that they have no intention of reassigning King to his committees after he defended white supremacy and white nationalism during an interview with The New York Times earlier this year.