As Biden urges rejection of racist replacement theory, Hawley says he doesn’t know what it is

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President Joe Biden on Tuesday traveled to Buffalo in the aftermath of a racially targeted mass shooting left 10 people dead and called on Americans to reject a racist theory.

Addressing the family members of the people killed at a supermarket specifically targeted because it was frequented by Black customers, Biden spoke of a radicalizing hate that has spread through media and politics and has taken root in this country.

“A hate that has radicalized angry, alienated, lost, and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced — that’s the word, ‘replaced’ — by the ‘other’ — by people who don’t look like them and who are therefore, in a perverse ideology that they possess and being fed, lesser beings.”

“I call on all Americans to reject the lie,” Biden said. “And I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit.”

Missouri’s Republican senators had split responses to Biden’s call — Roy Blunt rejected the theory outright, while Josh Hawley mostly rejected the question.

“Sure,” Hawley said, when asked if he would reject replacement theory. “I don’t really know what it is, but sure.”

Replacement theory is the racist belief that white people are not having enough children and will be “replaced” by minorities. Over time, the theory has spread from white nationalist groups — the white supremacists who gathered at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 chanted “you will not replace us” — into mainstream Republican politics.

In politics, the theory often comes up in conversations about illegal immigration, with some Republican politicians going so far as to claim Democrats are actively trying to replace the electorate with immigrants who are more likely to vote for them in elections.

That’s the way Fox News host Tucker Carlson phrased it last year when he was accused of promoting the theory on his show. An analysis of Carlson’s show by the New York Times found that he amplified the idea that Democrats were trying to use immigration to change the demographics of the United States in more than 400 episodes.

Hawley is one of Carlson’s frequent guests. When asked whether he had heard Carlson promoting replacement theory, he said, “No.”

After a reporter explained the theory to him, Hawley allowed the elevator doors to close and did not respond to the question.

While Hawley gave a mild condemnation of the theory, earlier in the day Blunt, who is retiring from the Senate, forcefully denounced it.

“It’s an outrageous theory,” Blunt said. “I totally rejected it as any reasonable discussion to be had.”

He stopped short, however, of condemning Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who have both been criticized for promoting the theory. Both men are running for the Republican nomination to succeed Blunt in the Senate next year.

Greitens said last month that illegal immigrants were “flooding into all of the 50 states,” according to a report from the Associated Press statements by Republican candidates. A week later, Schmitt claimed Democrats were “fundamentally trying to change this country through their illegal immigration policy,” according to the same report.

Schmitt, on Twitter, called the criticism a “joke.” Greitens campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Greitens was the first Jewish governor of Missouri. The Anti-Defamation League has repeatedly highlighted the antisemitic components of replacement theory, saying that the Buffalo shooter was motivated by the “same hateful antisemitic bile that inspired the shooters in Pittsburgh, Poway, El Paso and Charleston.”

Upon returning from Buffalo, Biden again urged the rejection of replacement theory. At an event honoring Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Biden said the country needs to talk about who is responsible for generating hate.

“You have folks on television stations talking about the replacement theory, scaring the living hell out of people who don’t have a whole lot of emotional stability,” Biden said. “Taking advantage of them on the internet and by other means about how we’re going to be overtaken.”