Los Angeles Times - 06.08.2019

A6 TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019 LATIMES.COM

and the other as a “twisted
monster.”
“Mental illness and ha-
tred pull the trigger, not the
gun,” Trump said.
Hours earlier, Trump
had suggested on Twitter
that he could support
“strong background checks”
for gun buyers if Congress
should enact them, but he
did not repeat that pledge in
his comments.
“Republicans and Demo-
crats must come together
and get strong background
checks, perhaps marrying
this legislation with desper-
ately needed immigration
reform,” he tweeted.
Lawmakers and White
House aides largely dis-
missed his suggestion that
two of the nation’s most po-
litically combustible issues
could advance in Congress
by being tied together, how-
ever.
Trump had endorsed
gun law reforms, including
expanded background
checks, following the 2018
school shooting in Parkland,
Fla., but quickly reversed
himself after meeting with
the National Rifle Assn.
The co-sponsors of a bill
to strengthen background
checks, Sen. Joe Manchin III
(D-W.Va.) and Sen. Patrick J.
Toomey (R-Pa.), both spoke
with Trump on Monday
about taking up their legis-
lation, which failed to garner
the required 60 Senate votes
to advance in 2013 months af-
ter the Sandy Hook Elemen-
tary School shooting.
“The president showed a
willingness to work with us,”
they said in a statement.
Two Democratic bills
that would expand back-
ground checks passed the
House in February with
scant Republican support,
and neither has been taken
up by the GOP-controlled
Senate.
Trump, for his part, has
threatened to veto the bills
should they ever get to his
desk, calling them a breach
of 2nd Amendment rights to
keep and bear arms.
The first bill would ex-
pand background checks for
buyers on all gun sales and
most gun transfers, includ-
ing private transfers. The
other would give the federal
government additional time
to complete a background
check on someone trying to
buy a gun from a licensed
dealer before the sale can be
finalized.
Trump, who offered sev-
eral ideas in his comments
aside from tightening the
nation’s gun laws, said he
would direct the Depart-
ment of Justice to work more
closely with local law en-
forcement to disrupt poten-
tial shooters.

He also supported more

so-called red-flag laws,

which enable police or family

members to petition a state

court to temporarily remove

firearms from someone who

may present a danger to oth-

ers or themselves.

The president also sug-

gested that those who com-

mit hate crimes and mass

killings should receive the

death penalty and be ex-

ecuted quickly.

Democrats, including

several 2020 candidates,

have blamed Trump for in-

citing violence against im-

migrants with racist lan-

guage, which reportedly was

echoed by the attacker who

killed 22 people in the El

Paso shooting Saturday.

Beto O’Rourke, the for-

mer El Paso congressman

who is now seeking the

Democratic presidential

nomination, slammed

Trump for suggesting that

stricter gun laws should be

tied to more restrictive im-

migration policies.

“Only a racist, driven by

fear, could witness what

took place this weekend —

and instead of standing up

to hatred, side with a mass

murderer’s call to make our

country more white,”

O’Rourke tweeted. “We are

so much better than this

president.”

Other Democrats in the

crowded 2020 field also criti-

cized Trump’s inaction on

the issue.

“Mr. President, immigra-

tion isn’t the problem. White

nationalism is the problem.

America’s inaction on gun

safety legislation is the prob-

lem,” tweeted former Vice

President Joe Biden.

“The president is weak.

And wrong. White suprema-

cy is not a mental illness, and

guns are a tool that white su-

premacists use to fulfill their

hate,” New Jersey Sen. Cory

Booker said in a text mes-

sage shared on Twitter by

his campaign manager.

Former President

Obama also issued a lengthy

statement, lamenting the

frequency of mass shootings

in America and calling for

changes to the nation’s gun

laws. Without referring to

Trump by name, he called on

the public to “soundly reject

language coming out of the

mouths of any of our leaders

that feeds a climate of fear

and hatred or normalizes

white supremacy.”

Speaking in the White

House Diplomatic Room,

Trump sought to deliver a

unifying message.

“Together, we lock arms

to shoulder the grief,” the

president said, stating that

cultural change is required

for the country to get beyond

the hatred that has motivat-

ed so many mass shootings.

“Cultural change is

hard,” he continued. “But

each of us can choose to

build a culture that cele-

brates the dignity and worth

of every human life.”

But Trump made no ac-

knowledgment of his own

role in sowing division with

incendiary rhetoric at rallies

or in his tweets.

After neo-Nazis and

other right-wing groups

clashed with counter-pro-

testers in Charlottesville,

Va., in August 2017, Trump

praised what he called “very

fine people on both sides,”

sparking a storm of criticism

at the suggestion of moral

equivalence between the

two groups.

Last year, he repeatedly

railed about a looming “in-

vasion” of immigrants —

which the El Paso shooting

suspect appeared to parrot

in what police say is his on-

line manifesto — and more

recently issued racist tweets

urging four Democratic

members of Congress, all

women of color, to “go back”

to their ancestral countries.

And while the president

said Monday that the public

and private sector should

collaborate “to develop tools

that can detect mass shoot-

ers before they strike,” the

Trump administration has

also taken steps to redirect

funding or focus away from

countering far-right extrem-

ism and anti-government

and white supremacist

groups.

Trump is expected to vis-

it El Paso and Dayton on

Wednesday, although the

White House did not an-

nounce official plans.

Rep. Veronica Escobar,

the Democrat who repre-

sents El Paso, said Monday

that, in her view, Trump is

not welcome in her commu-

nity.

“Words have conse-

quences,” she said in a TV in-

terview. “The president has

made my community and

my people the enemy. He has

told the country that we are

people to be feared, people

to be hated.”

Regarding a possible

Trump visit this week, she

added: “I hope that he has

the self-awareness to under-

stand that we are in pain and

we are in mourning. I would

ask his staff to consider the

fact that his words and his

actions have played a role in

this.”

In closing his address,

Trump mistakenly said

“May God bless the memory

of those who perished in To-

ledo,” an Ohio city about 150

miles from Dayton, where

the shooting occurred. The

line appeared on the White

House transcript distribut-

ed later, but with a line

through the words “in To-

ledo.”

Times staff writer Janet

Hook in Washington

contributed to this report.

Trump blames racism — but not guns

[Trump, from A1]

MOURNERSat a vigil in Dayton, Ohio. The death toll rose to 31 from the twin shootings in El Paso and

Dayton. President Trump described one of the shooters as “wicked” and the other as a “twisted monster.”

John MinchilloAssociated Press

PRESIDENT TRUMPaddresses the nation. He made no acknowledgment of his

own role in sowing division with incendiary rhetoric at rallies or in his tweets.

Saul LoebAFP/Getty Images

SAN DIEGO — When
Donald Trump held a rally in
2016 at the San Diego Con-
vention Center, hundreds of
cops in riot gear stood guard
against protesters outside
as Trump’s supporters in-
side chanted “build the
wall!”
On Monday at the same
convention hall, just 15 miles
from the U.S.-Mexico bor-
der, Democrats running for
president cast Trump as a
dangerous racist inciting vi-
olent gunmen to kill people.
A couple thousand Latinos
in the audience roundly ap-
plauded as the candidates
denounced his bigotry.
The killing of 22 people on
Saturday in a Walmart in El
Paso by a gunman sus-
pected of targeting Latinos
darkened the mood of the
annual conference of Uni-
dosUS, the nation’s biggest
Latino civil rights group.
“It was an attack on im-
migrants,” former U.S.
Housing Secretary Julián
Castro told the crowd. “It
was an attack on Mexicans
and Mexican Americans,
and that is no accident. That
is due in part to the climate
that this president has set of
division.”
Castro and four rivals in
the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination —
Sens. Kamala Harris of Cali-
fornia, Bernie Sanders of
Vermont and Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota and
former Vice President Joe
Biden — took turns criticiz-
ing Trump. Each drew a con-

nection between Trump’s

often racially divisive com-

ments and the El Paso mas-

sacre.

“Today I say to President

Trump: Stop your anti-im-

migrant rhetoric, stop the

hatred,” Sanders told the

audience. Trump’s aggres-

sive language “creates a situ-

ation where certain people

do terrible things.”

All the candidates were

warmly welcomed, a sign of

the challenge Trump will

face in November 2020 in

battleground states with

large Latino and immigrant

populations, such as Nevada

and Florida.

Janet Murguía, president

of UnidosUS, formerly Na-

tional Council of La Raza,

accused Trump of systemat-

ically trying “to create a

hateful portrait of Hispanics

in this country that dehu-

manizes us to the broader

public.”

She condemned his de-

scriptions of migrants cross-

ing the southern border “as

animals, rapists and mur-

derers.” She recalled

Trump’s suggestion that

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo

Curiel, who was born in Indi-

ana, could not be impartial

in a suit against the defunct

Trump University because

of his Mexican ancestry.

Trump griped about the

judge at the May 2016 rally in

San Diego.

“President Trump’s big-

oted and hateful words have

resulted in hateful and

deadly consequences,” Mur-

guía told reporters.

Mary Montaño, a retired

nonprofit consultant who

lives in Carlsbad, was shar-

ing her disapproval of

Trump with fellow Uni-

dosUS supporters at lunch

in a convention center ban-

quet hall before the Demo-

crats began speaking.

“He’s fomenting radi-

calism and white suprema-

cy,” she said.

The 21-year-old white

man who is accused of open-

ing fire in the crowded Wal-

mart on Saturday had

posted a manifesto online

lamenting a “Hispanic inva-

sion of Texas.”

Trump has often com-

plained of an “invasion” of

immigrants from Mexico

and Central America. When

he told supporters at a Flor-

ida rally in May that you

can’t “stop these people,” a

man in the crowd shouted,

“Shoot them.”

“Only in the Panhandle

can you get away with that

statement,” Trump joked.

Harris told the UnidosUS

gathering that Latinos were

now “targets of hate, misin-

formation, and coming from

the voices of very powerful

people, including the presi-

dent of the United States.”

“We are on the right side

of history, and when this is

all over and this moment

passes, we will remember

that we were the ones who

fought for the best of who

this country is,” she said.

In a speech Monday at

the White House, Trump de-

nounced “racism, bigotry

and white supremacy,” say-

ing “these sinister ideologies

must be defeated.”

Biden criticized the pres-

ident for suggesting that

mental illness was the root

problem that needed to be

addressed with mass shoot-

ers. Most are actually “driv-

en by hate,” Biden said. He

reminded the activists that

Trump had said there were

“very fine people on both

sides” of a 2017 violent clash

between neo-Nazis and their

opponents in Charlottes-

ville, Va.

“God forgive him,” Biden

said. “Ladies and gentle-

men, the words a president

utters matter. The world lis-

tens.”

Sen. Cory Booker of New

Jersey and other Democrats

in the presidential race de-

nounced Trump on Twitter.

“White supremacy is not a

mental illness,” Booker

tweeted, “and guns are a tool

that white supremacists use

to fulfill their hate.”

Lisa Cuestas, the daugh-

ter of an immigrant from

Juarez, Mexico, just across

the Rio Grande from El

Paso, came to the confer-

ence from San Ysidro, a bor-

der town where she heads

the Casa Familiarsocial

services organization. She

finds Trump’s anti-immi-

grant rhetoric appalling.

“It paints an entire peo-

ple as if they were inherently

born bad,” she said. “It’s a

dangerous way to communi-

cate. When you do that, you

create targets, and we

should be beyond that by

now.”

‘Stop the hatred,’ Sanders tells Trump

At a Latino gathering in San Diego, Democrats say the president’s words incite violence

By Michael Finnegan

CANDIDATEJoe Biden criticized President Trump for suggesting that mental

illness was the root problem that needed to be addressed with mass shooters.

Sam HodgsonSan Diego Union-Tribune