Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) was recently heard in an audio clip baselessly accusing the Democratic Party of being in cahoots with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
According to CNN, Perry uttered the remarks during a hearing in the House Oversight Committee dubbed "the Origins and Implications of Rising Antisemitism in Higher Education." That hearing was convened in response to the nationwide protest movement spreading on college campuses calling on colleges to divest their endowments from corporations with ties to Israel.
"The KKK in modern times, a lot of young people think somehow it’s a right-wing organization when it is the military wing of the Democratic Party. Decidedly, unabashedly, racist and antisemitic," Perry said (the KKK has no current ties to the Democratic Party). In the audio clip, he also endorsed the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory that has been widely condemned as racist and anti-Semitic.
"Replacement theory is real,” Perry is heard saying in the clip. “They added white to it to stop everybody from talking about it.”
Perry elaborated on his belief in the theory, pointing out that while his parents immigrated legally to the US from Colombia, immigrants seeking to enter the United States today are "un-American.
"What is happening now is we’re importing people into the country that want to be in America... but have no interest in being Americans, and that’s very different and to disparage the comments is to chill the conversation so that we can continue to bring in more people that we never met that are un-American," he said.
When CNN confronted the Pennsylvania Republican with the clip, he stood by his remarks and insisted the network purposefully misinterpreted him.
READ MORE: Scott Perry named on prosecution witness list in Georgia election interference case
"Once again, the radical Left twists facts in order to silence conversation about its own crimes and Biden’s intentional failures to enforce laws and close or regulate our borders," Perry said in an official statement. "My point is proven yet again: when the Left loses an argument, it debases and smears instead of engaging in debate on merits."
Adherents of the Great Replacement Theory believe that Democratic Party is purposefully bringing in non-white immigrants in order to eventually eradicate white people. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wrote that the theory "was famously promoted at the 2017 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, VA, when white supremacists chanted, 'Jews will not replace us.'"
"Right wing commentators have invoked the Great Replacement theory to say Democrats are 'replacing' American citizens with illegal immigrants," the ADL wrote. "Belief in the Great Replacement theory has been cited as motivation for recent terror attacks, including the 2018 Pittsburgh, PA, synagogue shooting at the Tree of Life, the 2019 El Paso, TX, and Christchurch, New Zealand, shootings, and the 2022 shooting in Buffalo, NY."
READ MORE: Judge grants DOJ access to 1700 records from GOP rep's phone in 2020 election reversal probe: report
Click here to read CNN's report in full.