Tuesday 17 May 2022 07:37 PM Chuck Schumer writes to Rupert Murdoch, demanding Fox cease pushing the 'Great ... trends now
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer wrote to Rupert Murdoch and other Fox News executives on Tuesday, demanding they denounce conspiracy theories like the 'Great Replacement Theory' and end any spread of white supremacist ideology on their network.
'I urge you to take into consideration the very real impacts of the dangerous rhetoric being broadcast on your network on a nightly basis,' Schumer wrote in the letter, where he called out Fox News' Tucker Carlson by name.
'For years, these types of beliefs have existed at the fringes of American life,' Schumer noted. 'However, this pernicious theory, which has no basis in fact, has been injected into the mainstream thanks in large part to a dangerous level of amplification by your network and its anchors.'
'I implore you to immediately cease all dissemination of false white nationalist, far-right conspiracy theories on your network,' he wrote.
Schumer later tweeted that Carlson invited him on his Fox News show but the Democrat was declining to appear.
'@TuckerCarlson invited me on his show tonight to debate the letter I sent to @FoxNews. I'm declining. Tucker Carlson needs to stop promoting the racist, dangerous ‘Replacement Theory’,' Schumer wrote.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer demanded Rupert Murdoch and other Fox News executives denounce conspiracy theories like the 'Great Replacement Theory'
Schumer sent his letter to Rupert Murdoch and other Fox News executives
Payton Gendron, 18, the suspect in the Buffalo grocery store shooting, touted what's being called the 'great replacement theory,' a once-fringe racist idea that became a popular refrain among media figures like Carlson and Laura Ingraham of Fox News.
He wrote a document claiming white Americans were at risk of being 'replaced' by people of color because of immigration and higher birthrates - which led to authorities to declare the shooting to be racially motivated.
Thirteen people were shot and 10 died in Saturday's attack. Eleven of the people shot were black.
Schumer's letter came after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday also refused to call out by name any public figures who pushed fringe theories like Gendron did.
She refused to do so again on Tuesday, saying she was not going to give them the attention they wanted.
'The people who spread this filth, know who they are, and they should be ashamed of themselves, but I'm not going to give them or give them or their noxious ideas they're pushing the attention that they desperately want,' she said.
And she doubled down when asked again.
'I'm not gonna give them a platform. So I just want to make that very clear, but we're going
