Booker staffer: Cancel Trump rally
Says president’s events are inflammatory
Presidential hopeful Cory Booker’s New Hampshire state director is calling on President Trump to cancel a planned rally in Manchester next week, saying it will further “threaten Americans’ safety” after a pair of mass shootings over the weekend.
But Granite State GOP officials say the event will go on as planned — and slammed Booker’s team for politicizing the tragedies that killed 31 in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
Erin Turmelle, Booker’s New Hampshire state director, released a statement Tuesday saying Trump’s rallies “serve as a breeding ground for racism and bigotry that inspire white nationalist attacks like the one in El Paso on Saturday.”
“What’s overwhelmingly clear is that Trump coming to New Hampshire will only stoke further dangerous acts and threaten Americans’ safety,” Turmelle said, calling on Trump to push Congress to take “meaningful action on gun legislation” and touting Booker’s gun control proposals — such as creating a federal licensing program. Booker said in an email to supporters Sunday that Trump was “responsible” for the El Paso shooting “because his racism and bigotry directly inspires white supremacists who carry out” those types of attacks.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Nina McLaughlin hit back Tuesday, saying, “While Cory Booker and 2020 Democrats scramble to politicize the tragic mass shootings, President Trump proposed commonsense, bipartisan solutions that should be taken seriously.”
New Hampshire GOP Chairman Stephen Stepanek said, “There will be absolutely no thought given to canceling the rally” slated for Aug. 15 — two days before Booker returns to the state.
“I’ve been to many rallies and never seen any sign of bigotry and hatred at the rallies, just enthusiastic people who are looking to support the president,” Stepanek said.
But Democrats, including several 2020 presidential hopefuls, slammed as racist the chants of “send her back” that arose at a North Carolina campaign rally last month when Trump criticized
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — who came to the United States when she was 12 as a Somalian refugee. Some Republican lawmakers took issue with the chant as well.
Trump is settovisitEl
Paso and Dayton today — though some Democrats said he’s not welcome in the Texas border community.
“This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday’s tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso,” tweeted presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who had served as a U.S. representative from the area and returned to El Paso from campaigning after the shooting. “We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here.”
But GOP strategist Patrick Griffin said, “Both atrocities are just that, they are atrocities. … The politicizing of this issue is doing nothing to save lives.”