Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York took to the Senate floor today to criticize Republicans for what he called a dangerous refusal to condemn antisemitic rhetoric, following white nationalist Nick Fuentes’s interview with Tucker Carlson and Fuentes’s growing public platform.

BELOW ARE HIS REMARKS:

Jewish Americans are facing threats, harassment, and violence at levels we have not seen in generations. And as I have said many times in this chamber: antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine. Where there is antisemitism, there lurks white supremacy and other pernicious forms of hate.

Well, three days ago, the President of the United States declined to condemn Nick Fuentes’s hateful views and defended Tucker Carlson’s decision to give Fuentes a platform. The president was asked about his thoughts on the interview, and he declined to condemn Nick Fuentes.

That is disgusting. For Donald Trump to excuse and protect the spread of Nick Fuentes’s ideology confirms what many of us have long said: white supremacy and antisemitism are taking deep roots, unfortunately, within Republican Party. Just as we saw recently from the leaked texts of Young Republicans, just as we’ve seen from text messages of administration officials, the Nick Fuentes saga on the right reveals that antisemitism and white supremacy have growing and disturbing currency within the right wing of the Republican Party.

But I know that is not true of everyone on the Republican side, especially not for many Republicans in this chamber.

Therefore, I will soon lead a resolution here in the Senate rejecting Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views, condemning Carlson’s platforming of hate, and condemning antisemitism and white supremacy wherever and whenever it occurs.

In the coming days I will work to grow support for my resolution, so the Senate can take a clear stand against hatred and antisemitism.

I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in this effort and cosponsor this resolution. Calling out antisemitism should not be a partisan issue. In fact, when we refuse to condemn antisemitism, when we stay silent and fail to reject antisemitic rhetoric, when we normalize hateful figures spewing disgusting antisemitism, that is when antisemitism spreads throughout society like a poisonous wildfire.

Americans don’t want to see that happen. So my resolution will soon give every Senator, every single Senator, a chance to take an important stand against hatred. The country must see us unite and fight this awful form of bigotry.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)