Who’s calling? This is the president

Pedutorecounts brief phonecall from Trump

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was on the phone with President Donald Trump for just a few minutes.

But that was enough time for Mr. Trump to ask the mayor about the death penalty, Mr. Peduto said Monday, recalling their conversation when the president called Oct. 27, right after the Tree of Life synagogue shootings in Squirrel Hill.

After an initial exchange, the mayor said, the president wanted to know his position on capital punishment.

“I didn’t say anything,” Mr. Peduto told reporters. “I was just numb, and not because he brought it up.”

Rather, he was numb because officials had just issued an “all-clear” at the synagogue, allowing authorities to enter and report back on the scope of the incident, Mr. Peduto said.

“There’s time for different types of conversation. That very moment I just wasn’t ready to be engaged in” that, he said, later adding: “I was just in a very different place.”

Eleven people died and six others were wounded in the massacre, in which suspected shooter Robert Bowers, 46, is charged with 44 federal counts. Prosecutors have begun seeking approval to pursue the death penalty. Mr. Bowers has entered a not-guilty plea.

The White House did not immediately comment Monday on the phone call, which the mayor estimated lasted two to three minutes.

Mr. Trump was cordial and, early in the call, expressed sympathies to Pittsburgh and offered assistance, he said.

Mr. Peduto shared an update from the synagogue, including revised data on casualties, before Mr. Trump brought up capital punishment, he said. The president indicated the death penalty should be expedited in certain cases, according to the mayor.

“Just dealing with information that I’m getting, that’s coming out about what our officers are seeing inside — that’s really at the forefront of my mind” in that moment, Mr. Peduto said.

He didn’t hang up on the White House, he said.

“The conversation ended like a

normal conversation, with an agreement that we’d work together on this and we’d be turning the site over to the FBI once our detectives had had the opportunity to go through it,” Mr. Peduto said.

That was the first — and, so far, only — time he has spoken with Mr. Trump directly, said the mayor, who has not made any public pronouncements about whether Mr. Bowers should face death.

Mr. Peduto’s office had additional communication with the White House over the next couple of days. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Oct. 29 that the president would visit Pittsburgh the next day.

“It was made very clear that we were not in a position for a presidential visit,” Mr. Peduto said, reprising his arguments from last week. The Democratic mayor refused to meet with the Republican president, as did many other elected officials from both parties.

He had asked that Mr. Trump not visit while funerals were being held. The last service was held Friday. Accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump visited Tree of Life and UPMC Presbyterian, which cared for most of the shooting victims, last Tuesday.

Mr. Peduto has differed with Mr. Trump before, most famously when the president invoked Pittsburgh in June 2017 during an announcement on climate policy. At the time, the mayor said his city was “adamantly opposed” to many Trump initiatives.