[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for the quorum call be rescinded.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.
____________________