President Donald Trump plans to visit El Paso this week following the devastating mass shooting that occurred over the weekend, according to Mayor Dee Margo.
The El Paso mayor announces President Trump will visit Wednesday. “He is President of the United States, so in that capacity I will fulfill my obligation to meet with him.” Adds he’s received “emails & phone calls” about the visit and “that’s why I’m saying what I’m saying now.”
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 5, 2019
He defends the trip as “not a political visit.” “I don’t know how we deal with evil. I don’t have a textbook for dealing with it other than the Bible. I’m sorry. The President is coming…I guess for people who have lots of time on their hands, I’ll deal with the emails & calls.”
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 5, 2019
Some had already called for Trump to stay away from the border city, given the president’s own anti-immigrant bigotry and its apparent connections to the shooter’s motive.
“From my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “I would encourage the president’s staff members to have him do a little self-reflection. I would encourage them to show him his own words and his actions at the rallies.”
Escobar represents a district that contains most of El Paso.
Beto O’Rourke, who represented the district before Escobar and prior to his current bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, shared the same view.
“He’s helped to create what we saw in El Paso on Saturday,” he told reporter Eleanor Dearman of the El Paso Times. “He’s helped to produce the suffering that we are experiencing right now. This community needs to heal.”
