Biden visits Buffalo to meet families of mass shooting victims – latest updates | Joe Biden

Ed Pilkington

An alleged white supremacist cited the racist “great replacement” theory in a manifesto posted online attempting to justify his massacre of the 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

Here, my colleague Ed Pilkington takes an in-depth look at the discredited conspiracy theory that has found favor with numerous Republican figures, including congresswoman elise stefanik and Fox News host Tucker Carlson:

On Saturday, a white man armed with an AR-15-style rifle entered a supermarket in Buffalo in New York state and killed 10 people, almost all of whom were African American. The gunman is suspected of having posted a 180-page racist diatribe in which he repeatedly referenced the extremist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement”.

The Buffalo shooter drew heavily on the white supremacist rantings of the gunman in the 2019 massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed. His similarly hate-filled statement was titled “The Great Replacement.”

At its heart, the theory falsely claims that white people are being stripped of their power through the demographic rise of communities of color, driven by immigration. The lie has been integral to many of the most horrifying recent acts of white supremacist violence in the US.

Far-right protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to the killing of a woman, chanted “You will not replace us”. Replacement theory featured in the rants of mass shooters at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 in which 11 people were murdered; to Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in which 23 were killed in 2019; and a synagogue in Poway, California, the same year in which one person died.

Replacement theory is a set of racist and antisemitic paranoid lies and delusions that has cropped up around the world in the past decade. In the US it is expressed as the false idea that an elite cabal of Jews and Democrats is “replacing” white Americans with Black, Hispanic and other people of color by encouraging immigration and interracial marriage – with the end goal being the eventual extinction of the whiterace.

Read the full story here:

Joe Biden will visit a makeshift memorial at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, this morning before meeting privately with survivors and families of the 10 people killed in a mass shooting on Saturday.

The president and first lady Jill Biden also plan to speak with first responders and local officials before Biden delivers remarks at a nearby community center at lunchtime calling on Congress to pass stricter gun laws, as well as urging Americans to reject racism.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One just now, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Biden was outraged by the shooting, and gave a preview of his address:

The president will call this despicable act for what it is, terrorism motivated by a hateful and perverse ideology that tears at the soul of our nation.

He will call on all Americans to give hate no safe harbor and to reject the lies of racial animus that radicalize and divide us and led to the act of racist violence we saw on Saturday that took the lives of 10 Americans.

President Biden will call on Congress to take action to keep weapons of war off our streets and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who have a serious mental illness that makes them a danger to themselves or others.

It remains to be seen if there is renewed appetite in the Senate for stronger gun laws in the wake of the Buffalo shooting and similar recent deadly hate attacks, including one at a California church on Sunday.

Republicans have repeatedly blocked efforts to introduce measures overwhelmingly popular with the US public. Jean-Pierre said:

We’re going to continue to call on Congress to expand to expand background checks, renew our ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and confirm Steve Dettelbach to head the ATF [bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives].

Biden made gun controls a plank of his election campaign, but has been frustrated by a divided Congress. Last month, he announced plans to crack down on so-called “ghost guns.”

Derrick Johnsonpresident of the national association for the advancement of colored people (NAACP) said the president’s visit to Buffalo was more than an exercise in grieving:

It’s important for him to show up for the families and the community and express his condolences. But we’re more concerned with preventing this from happening in the future.

We’ll bring you plenty more from the Bidens’ visit to Buffalo as it happens.

Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday’s US politics blog.

Joe Biden is on his way to Buffalo, New Yorkto meet families of the victims of Saturday’s racist attack at a grocery store that claimed 10 lives.

The president has called the mass shooting by an alleged radicalized white supremacist “terrorism motivated by a hateful and perverse ideology”. He and first lady Jill Biden will meet victims’ families, local officials and first responders this morning, and deliver remarks at lunchtime.

Meanwhile in Congress, Democrats are resurrecting efforts to pass the domestic terrorism prevention act in the wake of the Buffalo shooting and other recent hate crimes. The law would give the justice department more tools to tackle white supremacy in particular.

Here’s what else we’re watching today:

• It’s primary day in several states, and donald trump‘s grip on the Republican party will be tested in several key races, notably in pennsylvania. His choice for Senate nominee, TV doctor Mehmed Ozfaces a stiff challenge from an even more extremist candidate, Kathy Barnettand one from the mainstream, David McCormick.
• Voters in Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon and North Carolina are also at the polls, and my colleague Lauren Gambino will have coverage of the day’s events later this evening.
• homeland security secretary Alexander Mayorkas will visit the US-Mexico border in Texas amid uncertainty over the Biden administration’s efforts to terminate the Trump-era Title 42 policy that blocked refugees because of Covid-19.
• greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will address a joint meeting of Congress, with vice-president kamala harris in attendance.
• The House intelligence subcommittee will hold a public hearing this morning to investigate UFOs, or, more accurately, “unexplained aerial sightings” by the US military. Two Pentagon officials will give testimony.