Earlier this week, tea party activists and GOP lawmakers gathered near the Capitol to rail against an immigration reform bill passed by the Senate.
While the event was linked to a number of controversial figures, including an organizer who has argued for eugenics and called African-Americans a "retrograde species," that didn't deter Republicans like Rep. Steve King (Iowa) and Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) from showing up to join the chorus against a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
When Ken Crow -- a co-founder of the Tea Party Community -- stepped up to the microphone, however, George Zornick of The Nation said he was taken aback by the talk of "breeding" and racial purity that followed.
(Watch the video above, via Zornick.)
The transcript:
From those incredible blood lines of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and John Smith. And all these great Americans, Martin Luther King. These great Americans who built this country. You came from them. And the unique thing about being from that part of the world, when you learn about breeding, you learn that you cannot breed Secretariat to a donkey and expect to win the Kentucky Derby. You guys have incredible DNA and don’t forget it.
UPDATE: The Center for Immigration Studies, the nativist group that organized Monday's rally, has posted Crow's entire speech online. It includes a reference to the Bill Pullman's iconic speech in the 1996 blockbuster "Independence Day." Watch it here.