CNN's Avlon draws a direct line between Trump and racist shooters: 'None of this happens in a vacuum'

CNN's John Avlon on Monday took President Donald Trump to task for stoking racial hatred and directly inspiring racists who go on killing sprees.

During one of his "Reality Check" segments, Avlon explained how Trump has regularly hyped up fears of an immigrant "invasion" of the United States -- which has been the exact same word used by white supremacist mass shooters to justify slaughtering people of color.

"None of this happens in a vacuum," Avlon explained. "Remember the rally where the president asked how can you stop illegal immigrants and someone yelled, 'Shoot them?' The crowd laughed and the president smiled. When a gunman killed 51 Muslims in New Zealand after complaining about 'invaders,' President Trump said this the same day about our southern border: 'People hate the word invasion, but that's what it is.' It's something he's said more than a dozen times at rallies and tweets."

Avlon then noted that the "invasion" trope has since been used by mass shooters to justify slaughtering people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and at the El Paso Walmart over the weekend.

"Minorities [are being] targeted because these white supremacists fear what they call 'replacement,' the very term neo-Nazis chanted in Charlottesville," he said. "We've also seen too many of these suspects express support for the president's policies, including the one in El Paso... who wrote that he was trying to 'defend my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.'"

Watch the video below.