Ron Peri, who was appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to an oversight board for Disney’s special tax district, once warned that Europe is “collapsing” and “becoming Muslim through the depopulation of Europeans.” Peri made the comments in a Sept. 2021 video uploaded to the YouTube channel of his ministry, The Gathering USA.

As CNN reported, the former pastor has previously spread anti-gay conspiracy theories and racist pseudohistory about Irish slaves.

In the video, titled “The Longevity Lifestyle of the Jews,” Peri told listeners that “Nations die. Not from overpopulation but from depopulation.” After referencing the fall of the Roman Empire, Peri added that, “Europe is collapsing. It is becoming Muslim through the depopulation of Europeans.”

Peri read off statistics about “Islamic birthrates” in countries such as Afghanistan and Somalia, which he contrasted with birthrates of European countries. He added, “Do you know that there are, today, more Muslims in France than there are Catholics? Everything is changing in Europe.”

It is estimated that 47% of France’s population identifies as Roman Catholic while 4% is Muslim.

Peri then said that in the U.S. “we’re starting to see the same issue,” and that “the American birthrate” was 2.1 in 2019 while the Canadian birthrate was 1.5.

According to Peri, he took these statistics from America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It by Mark Steyn. Steyn is a far-right author and commentator who obsesses over immigrant fertility rates, defended white supremacists, and said “the more Muslims you have, the more terrorism you have.”

Citing data which showed a decline in births between Dec. 2019 and Dec. 2020, Peri proclaimed that “the United States is facing a demographic collapse.” Peri appeared to partially attribute the decline to the COVID-19 vaccine, stating that “Many believe that the vaccine is indeed having a very negative effect on fertility rates and fertility rates going forward.”