On June 16, 2021, the Senate unanimously passed a bill officially designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday. A day later, President Biden signed the bill into law. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the date when slaves in Galveston, Texas received word that they had been freed.

While the move received bipartisan support, Nick Fuentes claimed the holiday was a sign of an impending “genocide of white people.”

During the June 16 episode of his America First show, the white nationalist podcaster blasted Republicans who supported making Juneteenth a federal holiday as “useless,” and praised the fourteen Republican representatives who voted against it.

Fuentes pointed out that we have twelve federal holidays, including Independence Day, Washington’s Birthday, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day. And he compared Juneteenth to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which he likewise opposes, and which, he noted, was “fought vigorously by Republicans” before it was finally signed into law in 1983.

Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina filibustered a bill to make it a federal holiday, for example.

“And a lot of people felt the same way then about MLK Day that we do now about Juneteenth,” Fuentes said. “Which is to say that by putting this in the pantheon of American events, and by putting MLK in the pantheon of American heroes, you’re undermining the core identity of America. And clearly that is what this is designed to do.”

Citing the removal of Confederate monuments, the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project, and NFL players kneeling to protest police brutality, Fuentes claimed that the recognition of Juneteenth National Independence Day was about “challenging the identity of America.”

Fuentes also referenced the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which posits that white people in the U.S. and Europe are being systemically replaced by people of color.

“They’re declaring a new Independence Day,” he told viewers. “A new Independence Day. New Founding Fathers. New statues. New museums. New history for a new nation. That’s what this is about. They want to replace the people in America; replace the religion of America; replace the Independence Day of America down to the finest details.”

Independence Day, celebrated on July 4th, is not being “replaced” by Juneteenth, which is celebrated on June 19th.

Fuentes fretted that white Americans will be the “new minority” and the “new slaves,” while the “new Americans” will be “Blacks, Jews, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, [and] every country of the world.” And he capped off his deranged, racist rant by predicting that the recognition of Juneteenth will lead to “white genocide.”

“Critical race theory — or as I call it, white genocide — that’s what this is about. It is about furthering the genocide of white people and the destruction of the historic American nation.”