Biden Rails Against Replacement Theory and ‘Those Who Spread the Lie For Power, Political Gain, and For Profit’

President Joe Biden powerfully condemned white supremacy and the so-called Great Replacement theory pushed on the far-right in American politics, which was cited in a racist screed by the alleged shooter that killed 10 people in Buffalo over the weekend.

Biden began his speech with an emotional tribute to the victims of the shooting, which is being investigated by authorities as a hate crime. The president then turned his focus, in remarks made in Buffalo on Tuesday, to the ideology that fueled the horrific shooting.

“Jill and I bring you this message from deep in our nation’s soul. In America, evil will not win,” Biden said.

“I promise you. Hate will not prevail. White supremacy will not have the last word. Evil did come to Buffalo. It has come to too many places. Manifested in gunmen who massacre innocent people in the name of hateful perverse ideology,” he continued.

“It has taken so much. Ten lives cut short in a grocery store. Three others wounded by a hate-filled individual who had driven 200 miles from Binghamton, in that range, to carry out a murderous, racist rampage that he would live stream to the world,” the president continued.

“What happened here is simple and straightforward terrorism. It’s domestic terrorism. Violence inflicted in the service of hate. A thirst for power that defines one group of people being inferior to any other group,” he added.

“A hate that through the media and politics, the internet, has radicalized angry, alienated, lost and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced,” Biden said, explaining the central focus of the Great Replacement theory.

“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 are being fed, lesser beings,” Biden continued.

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

“That’s what it is, we have now seen too many times the deadly and destructive violence this ideology has brought. We heard the chants, ‘You will not replace us,’ in Charlottesville, Virginia,” Biden continued.

“When I saw those people coming out of the woods in Virginia, in Charlottesville, carrying torches. Accompanied by white supremacists and carrying Nazi banners. I said, ‘no,’” the president continued, explaining that was the moment he decided to run for president.

“We have seen the mass shootings in Charleston, El Paso, and Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta. This week in Dallas, Texas. Now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York. White supremacy is a poison. It’s poison.

“It really is. Running through our body politic. It has been allowed to fester and grow in front of our eyes. No more. I mean it, no more,” Biden said to more applause.

“We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None.

“Look, failure saying that is going to be complicity. Silence is complicity. It’s complicity,” Biden said, adding:

We cannot remain silent. Our nation’s strength has come from the idea — this is going to sound corny but what’s the idea of our nation? We are all children of God. Life, liberty, universal goods, gifts of God. We didn’t get it from the government. We got it because we exist. We are called upon to defend them. The venom of the haters and their weapons of war, of violence and the words and deeds that stalk our streets, our stores, our schools.

This venom, this violence cannot be the story of our time. We cannot allow that to happen. I’m not naive. I know tragedy will come again. It cannot be forever overcome.

It cannot be fully understood either. There are certain things we can do. We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We have done it before. I did it when we passed the crime bill last time. Violence went down. Shootings went down. It can’t prevent people from being radicalized to violence. We can address the relentless exploitation of the internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism.

“Hate and fear are given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America. But, who don’t understand America,” Biden charged.

The president concluded with a message of hope, saying, “We are thinking of you. Hold on to each other. Stick together. You will get through this. We will make Buffalo and the United States a better place to live than it is today.”

Watch the full clip above via MSNBC