Republican New York Rep. Peter King responded to the recent New York Times report Sunday, debunking The Times’ findings that white supremacists and anti-government extremists have killed at nearly twice the rate of radical Muslims since the Sept. 11 attacks.
King said that while “every murder is horrible,…there is no comparison between these white supremacists and an internationally coordinated movement which, if the attacks were not stopped, we could have thousands and thousands of deaths,” The Hill reported.
King supported his refute by citing numerous planned terrorist attacks that were intercepted, and therefore prevented, by the U.S.
“Just seven years ago, the attempted subway attacks here in New York would have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people, if that were not intercepted,” King said.
The New York Times report released Wednesday was primarily in response to the recent attack in Charleston, S.C. in which Dylann Roof, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, fatally shot nine African-Americans during an evening Bible study.
The reports says the proclaimed threat of jihadi terrorism to the United States is blown out of proportion, while “right-wing, antigovernment violence has been underestimated.”
“Everything should be investigated, everything should be stopped,” King responded. “But to compare these deranged white supremacists with an organized international terrorist movement, that’s The New York Times at its worst.”