Trump to Visit Pittsburgh After Shooting at Synagogue

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump plans to travel Tuesday to the Pittsburgh community that was the site of a synagogue massacre over the weekend, the White House said Monday, making a show of national solidarity in the face of anti-Semitism and hate even as he keeps up a steady stream of attacks on his perceived opponents.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, announced Trump’s trip at a news briefing and said the president would use his visit to express the support of the American people and to grieve with the community.

But the question-and-answer session with reporters appeared aimed as much at absolving the president of blame for his divisive messaging and at lashing out at news organizations as it was at expressing outrage and grief over a shooting that claimed the lives of 11 congregants gathered at their synagogue to observe Shabbat.

“The president cherishes the American Jewish community for everything it stands for and contributes to our country,” Sanders said, noting that one of the president’s daughters is Jewish, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is descended from Holocaust survivors.

A gunman opened fire Saturday inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, a heavily Jewish section of Pittsburgh. The man accused in the attack, authorities said, told police that he “wanted all Jews to die.” On Monday, Sanders began her briefing with an emotional condemnation of the killings and of anti-Semitism.

“This atrocity was a chilling act of mass murder, it was an act of hatred and, above all, it was an act of evil,” she said. “We all have a duty to confront anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

She quickly turned to criticism of the news media, arguing that journalists were at fault for the ills plaguing the country because they had been insufficiently supportive of Trump’s agenda. Sanders also angrily pushed back at the idea that the president’s own messaging and tactics might play a role in a toxic environment that gave rise last week to a spate of mail bombs and the mass shooting in Pittsburgh.

“The very first thing that the president did was condemn the attacks,” Sanders said. “The very first thing the media did was blame the president and make him responsible for these ridiculous acts — that is outrageous.”

“You guys have a huge responsibility to play in the divisive nature of this country,” she said later.

The combative nature of the briefing highlighted the awkwardness of the moment for Trump, who has shrunk from the task of expressing empathy and moral clarity at times of national challenge, and who had to be lobbied by his daughter Ivanka Trump and Kushner to issue a powerful statement against anti-Semitism after the shooting.

It came as some critics of the president said that he was not wanted in Pittsburgh because of past statements — including after a deadly neo-Nazi march last year in Charlottesville, Virginia — that have failed to clearly condemn hateful ideologies.

“President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism,” Bend the Arc Pittsburgh, a progressive group, wrote in an open letter Monday. It said that Trump had for the past three years “emboldened a growing white nationalist movement,” and it called the Tree of Life massacre “the direct culmination of your influence.”

The trip to Pittsburgh will unfold one week to the day before the midterm congressional elections in which Trump’s closing argument has featured divisive, fear-inspiring themes, including painting Democrats as a dangerous, angry mob and portraying Central American migrants as an invading horde that puts Americans at risk.

Over the weekend, the president condemned the shooting, calling it an anti-Semitic act and urging the country to come together to root out hate. He said he would tone down his speech in its wake, prompting boos from a rally crowd Saturday night in Illinois. But that did not last long.

By Sunday afternoon, Trump was attacking Tom Steyer, one of the Democrats targeted with a mail bomb, and that night, he was blaming the news media for the poisonous level of discourse. On Monday, he charged in a Twitter post that news organizations incite “anger and outrage” with biased reporting.

The president also used the same language adopted by the suspect in the synagogue attack to condemn a caravan of Central American migrants making their way north through Mexico.

“This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” Trump tweeted, referring to the migrants. The suspect in Pittsburgh posted a message on social media about the caravan shortly before the massacre, accusing Jews of bringing in “invaders” who were killing his people.

Sanders reacted angrily Monday when she was questioned about whether the president had an obligation to rise above divisive messages given the recent bloodshed and threats of violence.

“The president’s going to defend himself,” she said, “and he’s going to fight back.” Trump’s allies said he was merely reflecting the bitter discourse of the current moment.

“It’s going on all over the world — that’s what we don’t get,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview. “Trump is a symptom of a bigger problem.”

Graham said it was absurd to believe that Trump could be anti-Semitic, or encourage such sentiments, because his policies have been so favorable to Israel.

“He’s not anti-Semitic,” Graham said of the president. “That’s a ridiculous claim that he’s got anything to do with it.”