(FiveNation.com)- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer placed blame squarely in the laps of MAGA Republicans as well as media outlet Fox News and its top host Tucker Carlson for the mass shooting in Buffalo over the weekend.
During a floor speech he gave on Monday, Schumer heavily criticized the rhetoric they’re pushing, especially the “great replacement theory” that says white people are purposefully being replaced by forced immigration and higher birth rates among minorities.
The suspect in the Buffalo shooting case killed 10 people and targeted the predominantly Black neighborhood in the attack. Authorities have uncovered a racist manifesto allegedly written by the suspect that shows he essentially committed a hate crime.
In his speech, Schumer referenced an article in The New York Times that claimed Carlson has dedicated extensive coverage to the “looming catastrophe of demographic change.”
As Schumer said in his speech:
“According to one measure by the New York Times, Fox’s top political pundit, Tucker Carlson, as spewed rhetoric that echoes replacement theory at least 400 times on his show since 2016, 400 times. This is a poison that is being spread by one of the largest news organizations in our country.”
The majority leader of the Senate also said the theory is being propagated by “several right-wing outlets” that are looking to increase viewership through sensational stories. He then singled out MAGA Republicans, who he says are also propagating that message.
He continued:
“The message is not always explicit, but we’ve all seen the pattern. Every time MAGA Republicans or pundits wrongly vilify immigrants and call them ‘invaders,’ every time they falsely claim that millions of undocumented people cast ballots in our elections, every time loud, bigoted voices bemoan the disintegration of a ‘classic America,’ the subtext is clear.
“These hard-right MAGA Republicans argue that people of color in minority communities are somehow posing a threat, a threat to the American way of life.”
Fox News and Carlson himself obviously took notice of Schumer’s speech. A spokesperson for the media organization told Business Insider this week that Carlson has condemned violence on the air multiple times. He’s even promised that “we’ve been against, obviously, violence and terrorism since the day the show went on the air.”
Still, reporters pressed the White House about why they weren’t also jumping on the bandwagon to condemn Fox News and Carlson specifically. Karine Jean-Pierre, who is the newly-minted press secretary for the White House, talked about the shooting in Buffalo by saying:
“It doesn’t matter who it is. The moral truth of this is that it is a racial-motivated hate crime and it is abhorrent. And so that’s what we need to call out. It doesn’t matter who that is and that’s what we’re trying to make clear here.”
Carlson consistently rakes in the viewership. He has a huge show on Fox News, he’s the center of their strategy for streaming services, and he has two shows that appear on the FOX Nation app.
