Schumer: Tuberville is ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’ on white nationalist comments
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) heaped criticism on Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on Tuesday for saying a night earlier that the definition of “white nationalist” comes down to one’s “opinion.”
“The Senator from Alabama is wrong, wrong, wrong,” Schumer said Tuesday. “The definition of white nationalism is not a matter of opinion.”
“For the Senator from Alabama to obscure the racist nature of white nationalism is indeed very, very dangerous,” Schumer continued. “He is fanning the flames of bigotry and intolerance.”
Tuberville made the remarks in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, during which he took issue with the idea that white nationalists are, by definition, racist because they believe their race is the superior one.
“Well that’s some people’s opinion,” Tuberville told Collins, who had offered up the definition.
“My opinion of a white nationalist, if someone wants to call them white nationalist, to me, is an American. It’s an American,” Tuberville continued after being asked for his opinion. “Now, if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do, because I am 110 percent against racism.”
This is not the first time Tuberville has become embroiled with race-related troubles. The Alabama Republican criticized Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to a local radio station in May over his effort to purge “white nationalists” from the military. He later added that he calls white nationalists “Trump Republicans.”
Tuberville has been under the microscope for months over his long-standing hold on hundreds of military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s new abortion policy that allows service members to get reimbursed for travel to receive abortion care.