Why are Republican being so stupid?

So there's been another many-casualty mass shooting. White guy drives to a church in an area he does not live in with the sole intent of shooting black people. He tells the congregation he is doing this to kill black people and specifically does not shoot some of the crowd so they can spread the word that he was there to specifically kill lots of black people. This IS reported.

Then Fox News starts their spin that it was -religion- being attacked and religious hatred the cause of the shooting. Half of the Republican candidates have gone on rants about how the killings are a result of religious intolerance. There has been a lock-step denial that the killer was looking for blacks to kill because of racial hatred and that race plays no part in the shooting. Then I hear this and my brain hurts.