Trump shunned in Pittsburgh
Mayor, victim’s family, won’t see president over perceived anti-Semitism
A mourning family doesn’t want to meet him. Leaders of his own party declined to join him. The mayor has explicitly asked him not to come. Protesters have mobilized.
And yet President Donald Trump visited this grief-stricken city Tuesday, amid accusations he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday’s massacre inside a synagogue.
The president and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon, not long after the first funerals began for the 11 victims of the mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue. More than 1,300 people signed up for a demonstration at the same time — declaring Trump “unwelcome in our city and in our country.”
Congressional leaders from both parties — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., — have all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit, according to officials familiar with matter.
So have relatives of at least one of the victims.
Trump offered to visit with the family of Daniel Stein, a 71year-old who had just become a grandfather when he was gunned down at Tree of Life. Stein’s nephew, Stephen Halle, said the family declined in part because of the comments Trump made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, when he suggested the synagogue should have had an armed guard.
“Everybody feels that they were inappropriate,” Halle said Tuesday. “He was blaming the community.”
Stein’s funeral was one of four scheduled Tuesday. In the late morning, hundreds of mourners lined up to see the coffins of Cecil and David Rosenthal — two brothers gunned down at Tree of Life three days earlier, as they celebrated the Jewish Sabbath with Stein and the oth- er victims.
The city’s Democratic mayor, Bill Peduto, had asked the White House to consider “the will of the families” before visiting — as well as the resources of a city straining under the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
“All attention should be on the victims,” Peduto said Monday. “We do not have enough public safety officials to provide enough protection at the funerals and ... at the same time draw attention to a potential presidential visit.”
After Trump confirmed his visit anyway, the mayor’s office said Peduto would not appear with the president. Neither will Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who lives near the synagogue, his office said.
Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers — who called out “hate” in U.S. political speech after the shooting — has said he plans to welcome the president.
“Hate is not political,” he told The Washington Post. “It is not blue or red, it’s not male or female, it doesn’t know any of those divisions.”
Trump visited the Tree of Life synagogue on Tuesday with his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom are Jewish and serve as top White House aides. News cameras captured Trump and the first lady outside the synagogue, placing flowers and stones at memorials to the victims.
Marchers in Squirrel Hill sat down in the middle of a street near the synagogue while Trump was in the area, purposely facing away from him so as to turn their backs on the president.
Tree of Life has been closed since Saturday’s rampage, allegedly carried out by a man who ranted online that Jews were bringing “invaders in that kill our people.” The suspect, Robert Bowers, was referring to a Jewish group that works with refugees in the United States.
“I’m just going to pay my respects,” Trump said in a Fox News interview Monday. “I’m also going to the hospital to see the officers and some of the people that were so badly hurt. So, and I really look forward to going. I would have done it even sooner, but I didn’t want to disrupt anymore than they already had disruption.”