[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 83 (Monday, May 16, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2507-S2508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

  ADDITIONAL UKRAINE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2022--MOTION TO 
                            PROCEED--Resumed

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 7691, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 368, H.R. 7691, a bill 
     making emergency supplemental appropriations for assistance 
     for the situation in Ukraine for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2022, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  (Ms. HIRONO assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Duckworth). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The majority leader is recognized.


                      Buffalo, New York, Shooting

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, 2 days ago, barbarism descended upon 
the city of Buffalo. At about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, in a predominantly 
Black neighborhood on Buffalo's east side, a lone gunman, driving from 
200 miles away, equipped with an assault rifle, body armor, and a video 
camera in his helmet, carried out a targeted attack against unarmed 
civilians inside a Tops Friendly supermarket. His goal? To kill as many 
Black Americans as possible. In a matter of minutes, 10 people were 
killed, including a former Buffalo Police officer who worked as a 
security guard. At least three more were wounded. It was the deadliest 
shooting in the history of Buffalo and the worst mass shooting in 
America this year.

  Today, we hold in our hearts every single New Yorker whose life was 
tragically cut short during Saturday's violence. We weep, knowing 
nothing--nothing--will ever be able to bring them back. We mourn with 
their families and with their friends, and with the entire community 
still shellshocked by this shooting.
  Tomorrow, I will join with President Biden, the First Lady, and 
others to travel to Buffalo in order to pay my respects to those who 
died, as well as to visit with the families and to visit with the local 
officials still investigating the attack. We also, of course, thank our 
brave first responders who were at the scene moments after the 
shooting. Without them, more undoubtedly would have been killed.
  We stand--we stand strongly and proudly with the community of 
Buffalo, known as the ``city of neighbors.'' Buffalonians during times 
of crisis have always pulled together, and that is happening today.
  The East Side community, where the shooting occurred, is strong in 
faith. And I know it, along with the entire city and region, will 
overcome this tragedy. I say that because I know this community. Years 
ago, I worked hard to bring that grocery store to the east side of 
Buffalo because the community deserved a full-fledged supermarket. It 
was a much-needed oasis in what was then a total food desert.
  I know many in the community shop at that grocery store, whether to 
buy food on their way home from church or before the Bills games. It is 
where people see friends and relatives and catch up on things in 
between errands. It has become a community center. Buffalo is the 
``City of Good Neighbors,'' and nowhere is that truer than on the East 
Side.
  Now, I don't know what could possess someone to bring violence to a 
place

[[Page S2508]]

like that. What I do know is that this weekend's shooting is part of an 
ugly pattern--one that dates to the earliest days of this Nation. 
Racism has always been--and, unfortunately, still is--a poison--the 
poison of America. The original sin of slavery and the decades of 
racial terror, discrimination, separate but equal, White supremacy, and 
bigotry that followed, unfortunately, continue to exert poisonous 
influence on our society--an influence so poisonous that even today, 
after America elected a Black President, after America marched for 
racial justice, after the Senate confirmed a Black Supreme Court 
Justice--a Black woman Supreme Court Justice for the first time ever--
we must still reckon with unspeakable acts of racial violence like what 
happened Saturday on Jefferson Avenue.
  As I said, the community is strong in faith, and I know they will 
overcome this tragedy. I know that because I know Buffalo.
  Madam President, over the next few days, I will continue my 
conversations with local officials and Federal investigators to get to 
the bottom of this harrowing massacre. But while there is much that we 
don't know yet about Saturday's shooting, there are a few things that 
are already clear and which demand action.
  First, the victims on Saturday were not targeted at random, nor was 
this particular grocery store in this particular neighborhood of 
Buffalo a haphazard selection. It was not. No, this was a racially 
motivated attack. The shooter made his choice by seeking the most 
predominantly Black neighborhood in the region. Online, the shooter 
proudly professed himself as a neofascist, White supremacist, anti-
Semite. His views, shared extensively online, embraced a dangerous 
ideology known as ``the Great Replacement,'' which asserts that a 
conspiracy exists to replace White Americans with immigrants and people 
of color.
  Racially motivated shootings are, sadly, not new in our country. The 
last decade alone holds too many examples of too many lives that have 
been extinguished at the hands of shooters harboring White racist, 
White supremacist views. It is the same hatred that motivated the 
shooting at a Walmart in El Paso; the same poison that possessed the 
shooter at a synagogue in Pittsburgh; the same bigotry that murdered 
eight people in Atlanta last year; and the same evil that took the 
lives of nine worshippers at a church in Charleston. It was the same 
evil at play this Saturday in the beloved City of Buffalo, NY.
  Not long ago, views like replacement theory were only found in the 
darkest places in deranged minds. Then they came to be found in hardly 
viewed trenches of the internet and in chat rooms that most Americans 
never visit. To most Americans, these ideas are transparently repugnant 
and an affront to our core values. They directly contravene the message 
of welcome and opportunity symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. But, 
unfortunately, with each passing year, it seems harder and harder to 
ignore that the echoes of replacement theory and other racially 
motivated views are increasingly coming out into the open and given 
purported legitimacy by some MAGA Republicans and cable news pundits.
  The message is not always explicit, but we have 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 an imagined ``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. This is replacement 
theory in a nutshell. It is dangerous and a deeply anti-American world 
view. It is poisoning minds--people's minds--who spend hours wandering 
the darkest wastelands of the internet.
  And let's be clear. It is a message that has also found a special 
home in several right-wing outlets and on one cable news channel in 
particular--FOX News. In a craven quest for viewers and ratings, 
organizations like FOX News have spent years perfecting the craft of 
stoking cultural grievance and political resentment that eerily mirrors 
these messages found in replacement theory.
  According to one measure by the New York Times, FOX's top political 
pundit--most widely watched--Tucker Carlson has spewed rhetoric that 
echoes replacement theory at least 400 times on his show since 2016.
  Let me repeat that. According to one measure by the New York Times, 
FOX's top political pundit, Tucker Carlson, has spewed rhetoric that 
echoes replacement theory at least 400--400--times on his show since 
2016. Four hundred times. This is a poison that is being spread by one 
of the largest news organizations in our country.
  Now, to its credit, this morning the Wall Street Journal Editorial 
Board--which is run by the same elites who run FOX News, owned by the 
same people--the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote:

       Politicians and media figures have an obligation to condemn 
     such conspiratorial notions as ``white replacement theory.''

  Those are the words of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. They 
are right. Condemning racist ideologies and violence is necessary, but 
it is hardly sufficient. It is not enough for outlets like FOX News to 
simply condemn Saturday's violence and condemn the shooter's racist 
views and then return to their regularly scheduled program. To have an 
impact in the fight against domestic violence and extremism, FOX News 
and their hosts need to actually stop spreading dangerous ideas like 
replacement theory on their shows.
  Let me say that again. If organizations like FOX News truly want to 
condemn this weekend's violence, they need to stop spreading ideas like 
replacement theory on their shows. We see, sadly, unfortunately, and on 
several all too many occasions what happens when these views are given 
a platform.
  Every single media pundit, every single elected politician, and, 
indeed, every single voice of influence in this country should band 
together to stomp views like replacement theory out of existence. These 
views should have no place in American society and certainly no place 
in the segments of our most-watched news channels. What we need to do 
instead is to respond to tragedies like this one, like the one that 
occurred this weekend, with the resolve to root out hatred in our 
country; and we must leave no stone unturned in pursuing solutions that 
make these attacks less likely--these tragic, awful, horrible attacks. 
Just look at the pictures of the people who died.
  To be clear, denouncing and rooting out racist conspiracy theories 
spread by the hard-right is only one step we must take and certainly 
not a substitute for passing other meaningful legislation to address 
the gun violence epidemic.
  But as we mourn those lives that were taken away this weekend, as we 
grieve with the survivors, we must also make a commitment as Americans 
to oppose the old poisons of racism and White supremacy that have been 
with us far too long that inspire these violent attacks to begin with.
  If we don't do that--if we don't do that--I fear these attacks will 
continue and even multiply, and true justice in a Nation that aspires 
to E Pluribus Unum will continue to evade our great Nation.
  I yield the floor.

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