Trumps bullshit call for unity
By
Katie Rogers and
Jeffery C. Mays
- Oct. 27, 2018MURPHYSBORO, Ill. ā President Trump said on Saturday that āthe hearts of all Americans are filled with griefā after a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue left at least 11 people dead, and he called on the country to combat hate crimes together.
āIt will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism,ā Mr. Trump said to a rally crowd here at an airplane hangar in rural Illinois. āThe scourge of anti-Semitism canāt be ignored.ā
Still, Mr. Trump again demonstrated that he would not be swayed from the call of the campaign trail during a politically volatile and violent midterm election season. Not as the death toll at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh mounted. And not as the authorities were still investigating how another suspect in a separate case this week went from being a loyal Trump fan to
mailing explosive devices to several of Mr. Trumpās critics.
In minutes, Mr. Trump moved from a call for unity to attacking and name-calling Democrats, including his former presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, and leading lawmakers like Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Maxine Waters.
Rather than hang back at the White House, the president barreled forward to Illinois to support Representative Mike Bost, a Republican
in a tight race for re-election. Mr. Trump received counterterrorism briefings on the road. He delivered real-time shooting āresultsā to the country between Air Force One stops and urged Americans to fight religious and racial prejudice. And he repeatedly said that the death penalty should be enforced.
āWe canāt make these sick, demented, evil people important,ā Mr. Trump said to his rally crowd. āWhen we change all of our lives in order to accommodate them, itās not acceptable.ā
Asked by reporters beforehand about Cesar Sayoc Jr., who was arrested and charged with sending the explosives, Mr. Trump said, āHe was no supporter of mine.ā
On Saturday, Mr. Trump made a stop at an Indiana farming convention ahead of a busy schedule next week in the run-up to the elections, when at least 10 campaign events are scheduled. Mr. Trump also said that he intended to visit Pittsburgh, but did not give a time frame.
Hours before his latest rally ā where he often voices his support of the Second Amendment ā Mr. Trump said that the nationās gun laws had ālittle to doā with the shooting and suggested that the synagogue should have had an armed guard in place.
āIf they had protection inside, the results would have been far better,ā he said. āThis is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect.ā
Four police officers were among the injured, according to Wendell D. Hissrich, Pittsburghās public safety director. And Democrats, including Pennsylvaniaās governor, Tom Wolf, quickly disagreed with the presidentās assertion that gun laws had little to do with the shooting.
āDangerous weapons are putting our citizens in harmās way,ā said Mr. Wolf, adding that people should resist accepting āthis violence as normal.ā