Trump visits shooting site amid controversy, criticism
PITTSBURGH: US President Donald Trump yesterday visited the Pittsburgh synagogue attacked by an antiSemitic gunman and lit candles for each of the 11 slain worshippers, while thousands protested his presence in the city and victims’ families began burying their dead.
The presidential trip, which sources said congressional leaders of both parties declined to join, came as Trump drew widespread disapproval for inflammatory rhetoric that critics said may have helped provoke the deadliest attack ever on United States Jewry.
Shrugging off public assertions from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto that his visit was illtimed, the president entered the Tree of Life temple where the shooting rampage occurred, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump.
They were greeted by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who led them inside the temple to light ritual candles in memory of the victims. Later, the couple walked to a memorial outside the building, where the first lady placed a flower and the president placed a small stone on a marker for each of the dead.
Trump, who according to press secretary Sarah Sanders, described his visit as ‘‘very humbling and sad,’’ made no public remarks.
‘‘He wanted today to be about showing respect for the families and the friends of the victims as well as for Jewish Americans,’’ Sanders said.
Several thousand protesters, an ethnically mixed crowd of all ages including members of Pittsburgh’s tightknit Jewish community, held an antiTrump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with slogans such as ‘‘We build bridges not walls.’’
Many of their signs carried slogans and imagery invoking one
of Squirrel Hill’s most famous residents, the late Fred Rogers, whose longrunning children’s television show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood featured lessons on friendship and kindness. Their march started on the street where he grew up and ended at the church where he belonged.
Trump also went to a city hospital and visited three police officers, wounded in a gunfight with the shooting suspect, and
their families.
Sanders said Trump also spent time with the wife of one of the slain congregants, Richard Gottfried (65).
Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania’s secondlargest city came just seven days before national elections that will determine whether his Republican Party will keep control of both houses of Congress or whether the Democrats will take one chamber or both.
The president and his wife were joined by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, his daughter and soninlaw, who are Jewish and serve as White House advisers, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is Jewish.
The first funerals for the victims of the attack were held earlier yesterday.
The attack has heightened a national debate over Trump’s rhetoric, which critics say has contributed to a surge in white nationalist and neoNazi activity.
The Trump administration has rejected the notion he has encouraged farright extremists who have embraced him.
But protest organisers said Trump’s frequent tweets about the caravans of Central American migrants travelling through Mexico towards the United States may have been a factor in provoking the weekend bloodshed.
They noted that Trump had characterised the caravans as an ‘‘invasion’’ while falsely stating they harboured terrorists and were financed in part by Democrats and Jewish philanthropist George Soros. — Reuters