The Washington Post - 06.08.2019

A4 EZ RE K THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 , 2019

mass shootings in america

BY ASHLEY PARKER,

PHILIP RUCKER

AND JOSH DAWSEY

Teleprompter Trump repudiat-
ed Twitter Trump in the Diplo-
matic Reception Room of the
White House on Monday.
Speaking in the wake of two
mass shootings in less than 24
hours that left at least 31 dead
over the weekend, President
Trump spoke of “the inherent
worth and dignity of every hu-
man life” and the scourge of
“destructive partisanship.”
“In one voice, our nation must
condemn racism, bigotry, and
white supremacy,” the president
said, reading from a script that
scrolled on a teleprompter in
front of him. He added, “Now is
the time to set destructive parti-
sanship aside — so destructive —
and find the courage to answer
hatred with unity, devotion and
love.”
That unifying message stood in
stark contrast to more than 2^1 / 2
years of name-calling, demoniz-
ing minorities and inflaming ra-
cial animus, much of it carried
out on Twitter. Just two hours
before his White House speech,
Trump tweeted an attack on the
“Fake News” media for contribut-
ing to a culture of “anger and
rage.” And in another set of
tweets, the president suggested
pairing “strong background
checks” with “desperately needed
immigration reform” — then
dropped the matter entirely dur-
ing his speech.
Such is the picture of a divisive
leader trying to act as a healer,
particularly in the aftermath of
Saturday’s anti-immigrant attack
in El Paso, where officials are still
investigating but believe the al-
leged gunman posted a manifesto
that echoed Trump’s harsh rheto-
ric on immigrants, including de-
scribing his attack as “a response
to the Hispanic invasion of Tex-
as.” Trump, in tweets and in
rallies, has repeatedly decried the
“invasion” of undocumented im-
migrants across the nation’s
southern border.
The episode and its immediate
aftermath illustrate the limits on
Trump's ability to speak to the
whole nation in a time of tragedy,
given both his rhetoric and his
focus on appealing primarily to
the part of the electorate that
voted for him in 2016 and still
supports him now.
As White House officials pri-
vately scrambled to plan a visit
for Trump later this week to El
Paso and Dayton, Ohio — where
another gunman killed at least
nine and injured at least 27 early

Sunday morning — the president

found himself unwelcome in the

grieving Texas border city.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-

Tex.), whose district includes the

El Paso Walmart involved in the

massacre, urged the president

and his team “to consider the fact

that his words and his actions

have played a role in this.”

“From my perspective, he is not

welcome here,” Escobar said on

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Mon-

day. “He should not come here

while we are in mourning.”

Former president Barack

Obama issued a forceful call Mon-

day for the nation to “soundly

reject language coming out of the

mouths of any of our leaders that

feeds a climate of fear and hatred

or normalizes racist sentiments.”

In a statement posted to his

Twitter and Facebook accounts,

Obama warned that such lan-

guage has been at the root of most

human tragedy, from slavery to

the Holocaust to Rwandan geno-

cide.

Although Obama never men-

tioned Trump by name, the state-

ment amounted to a tacit rebuke

of the president by a predecessor

who has largely kept himself out

of the public eye since leaving the

White House.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor

to the president, defended

Trump’s handling of the El Paso

and Dayton shootings and

praised him for condemning rac-

ism, white supremacy and bigot-

ry.

“He was unequivocal and spe-

cific, and I think equal parts

grief-stricken, angry and resolved

to take action,” Conway told re-

porters in the driveway of the

White House.

Conway also praised her boss

for restraining himself from at-

tacking the Democratic presiden-

tial candidates who blamed

Trump for the shooting.

“They spent most of the week-

end on TV screaming and preen-

ing, lying in many ways, and I

thought expressing some condo-

lence but also just taking pot-

shots at the president and some

of his closest advisers, calling

them names,” Conway said.

“There’s a difference between

those who want to be president

and try to politicize things and he

who is the president and did not

respond in-kind today in his re-

marks.”

Other White House officials

pointed to what they described as

over-the-top language from

Democrats — some of whom

called Trump a racist and implied

his rhetoric made him at least

partially culpable.

As the shootings unfolded,

Trump spent the weekend seclud-

ed at his Bedminster golf club in

New Jersey. Key advisers — in-

cluding Conway, acting chief of

staff Mick Mulvaney, national se-

curity adviser John Bolton —

were not at the club.

Senior policy adviser Stephen

Miller led the effort to write

Monday’s response, with four or

five people pitching in, according

to two people familiar with the

efforts, who spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity to reveal pri-

vate discussions. The group con-

sulted previous speeches the

president had given following

tragedies, including after a white

supremacist rally in Charlottes-

ville left one dead and after a 2017

mass shooting at a country music

festival in Las Vegas, one of the

people said.

Trump spent part of the week-

end complaining to allies and

club members about media cov-

erage that seemed to blame him

for the shootings, two people

familiar with his com-

ments said. But, these people

added, Trump was not visibly

upset or at what they would

describe as a “nuclear level.”

The president also offered sig-

nificant input to the speech, two

White House officials said. But

according to photographs and

videos posted on Instagram,

Trump also found time for leisure

as he milled about his private

property. He was spotted wearing

his golf attire and posing for

photos with guests, including

with a couple holding their wed-

ding reception at Bedminster.

White House aides wanted

Trump’s 10 a.m. Monday speech

to be the decisive message on the

shootings, and on Sunday night

and Monday morning talked to

him about what he would say and

how the tone would be “presi-

dential,” a White House official

said.

There had been no internal

discussion about linking immi-

gration legislation to background

checks — as the president tweet-

ed Monday — because there was

no plan to mention that in the

speech, White House officials

said.

The policy outlines mentioned

by the president were scattershot

at best — many of them unlikely,

poorly defined or marginal in

impact. “Mental illness and ha-

tred pulls the trigger, not the

gun,” Trump said.

Tom Bossert, a former Home-

land Security adviser, said the

White House should seize the

moment to push bold policy

changes. “The country is really

galvanized on this right now,” he

said. “The president and the peo-

ple around him should not be

worried about the politics and

should be trying to figure out how

to tie together records of mental

health problems and records of

gun ownership and everything

that goes into keeping them accu-

rate and updated.”

But for critics of Trump, his

teleprompter remarks felt per-

functory and even disingenuous.

“If you laid that speech next to

videos of his rallies, it’s mind-bog-

gling,” said David Axelrod, a sen-

ior adviser Obama. “He said what

you’d want the president to say.

The problem is that in real life,

he’s a provocateur, not a healer,

and his whole political project

depends on those provocations.

And so how long will it be before

he returns to ‘Twitter Trump’

stirring the pot? How long before

the next rally when he uses the

dehumanizing language that he

decried in his remarks today?”

Indeed, the president has a

history of walking back his more

conciliatory comments and re-

treating into the incendiary lan-

guage he believes his base pre-

fers. After Charlottesville, for ex-

ample, Trump faced a storm of

criticism for condemning “vio-

lence on many sides,” prompting

him to deliver teleprompter re-

marks admonishing white su-

premacists — only to backtrack

again by saying there were “very

fine people” on both sides.

Current and former adminis-

tration officials said Trump can

be persuaded to strike a more

unifying tone, but will quickly

revert if he faces criticism from

the news media or Democrats.

Tim O’Brien, a Trump biogra-

pher and executive editor of

Bloomberg Opinion, said

that “Twitter is the closest to

Donald Trump’s core that you’re

going to get publicly.”

When he reads from a tele-

prompter, O’Brien added, Trump

has little “tells” — those moments

when he goes off script. The

president did so at the end of his

remarks Monday, when he acci-

dentally blessed the memory of

“those who perished in Toledo” —

even though the shootings were

in Dayton and El Paso. (When the

White House sent out an official

transcript of his speech, they had

simply crossed out “in Toledo”

from the text).

The message that sends,

O’Brien said, is “that he just

doesn’t care enough, that he isn’t

steeped in the details, that he

wasn’t checking in over the week-

end with his people, that he

wasn’t making plans to go there,

that he wasn’t in touch with the

governor of Ohio and the mayor

of Dayton.”

On Monday morning, Dayton

Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat,

said she had not received a call

from the president but had heard

he was planning a visit for

Wednesday.

“And, you know,” she add-

ed, “he might be going to Toledo.”

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

When a divisive leader aims to act as the nation’s healer

BY SEUNG MIN KIM

In the aftermath of the deadly
mass shootings in El Paso and
Dayton, Ohio, President Trump
on Monday proposed no fewer
than a half-dozen ideas to reduce
gun violence — a mishmash of
proposals that varied from the
legislatively possible to the ill-
defined and implausible.
Trump decried “gruesome and
grisly video games” and urged the
public to begin lessening their
influence, even though research-
ers say there is little evidence that
ties video games to violent behav-
ior. He promoted a bipartisan ef-
fort led by Sen. Lindsey O.
Graham (R-S.C.), one of his closest
congressional allies, to help con-
fiscate firearms from those
deemed unfit to possess them.
Those statements came after
Trump, in a pair of tweets, called
for strengthening background
checks for gun purchases but in
tandem with “desperately needed
immigration reform” — tying the
two contentious issues together
for reasons that neither he nor
White House officials chose to
explain.
The end result was a muddled
response that spurred momen-
tum on some fronts — such as
promoting extreme-risk protec-
tion orders commonly known as
“red flag” laws — but prompted
backlash on others. There was no
sign that Congress would return
to Washington to address the is-

sue.

“While he is, in some ways,

talking about gun violence, he

continues to conflate gun violence

to other things,” said Kyleanne

Hunter, vice president of pro-

grams at Brady, which advocates

for gun restrictions. “Almost every

country has a mental-health prob-

lem. Every country has video

games. Every country has immi-

grants and migrants and refugees.

Hunter added: “America is

alone in the fact that they have a

gun violence problem.”

White House media officials

did not respond to requests for

specifics behind what Trump had

proposed in a 10-minute address

earlier Monday, such as how to

reduce the influence of video

games or regulate the Internet

to prevent the radicalization of

what Trump called “disturbed

minds.”

Nor did they elaborate on why

Trump linked the issue of back-

ground checks to immigration,

since neither the shooter in Day-

ton nor the suspect in El Paso was

an immigrant. Law enforcement

officials are also investigating a

manifesto filled with anti-immi-

grant views and warning of

a “Hispanic invasion” that the sus-

pect in the El Paso massacre, Pat-

rick Crusius, purportedly wrote.

Republicans offered a more

charitable explanation: that

Trump was tossing out several

ideas as a starting point for dis-

cussion.

“The most optimistic view of it

is: He’s putting everything on the

table,” Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.)

said Monday. “He’s the ultimate

negotiator and bargainer, and he

realizes that if you’re going to go

take a different position than

you’ve taken before, then you have

to offset it somehow.”

Although discussions are pre-

liminary, several senior Republi-

can officials on Monday pointed

to extreme-risk protection orders

as the most plausible legislative

route, particularly if Trump con-

tinues to endorse it and give GOP

lawmakers political cover to back

the most anodyne of gun restric-

tions.

“A lot of this will be driven,” one

senior Republican aide said, “by

how active Trump is.”

Graham and Sen. Richard Blu-

menthal (D-Conn.) are writing

legislation that would offer feder-

al grants and other incentives for

states to develop laws implement-

ing emergency risk protection or-

ders. Those statutes would allow

family members, law enforce-

ment officials and others to peti-

tion a judge to bar firearms from

someone they believe is an immi-

nent threat to themselves or oth-

ers. Seventeen states and the Dis-

trict have such laws on the books,

according to the Giffords gun-

control group.

Trump has been known to en-

dorse gun restrictions and subse-

quently backtrack amid opposi-

tion from conservatives, and there

were some early signs of conster-

nation as some GOP officials not-

ed that Graham, who leads the

Senate Judiciary Committee,

didn’t consult other Republicans

on the panel about his plans.

But Graham said he spoke with

Trump earlier Monday and that

the president seemed supportive.

In an interview, Blumenthal

said his goal was to introduce the

bill by October or earlier.

“The president’s support would

be a breakthrough if he is about

action as well as words,” Blumen-

thal said. But “this statute is one of

only a number of measures that

are necessary.”

Hunter, the Brady official, said

suspects in both El Paso and Day-

ton would have been candidates

for protective orders, which she

said have been “incredibly effec-

tive” at preventing gun violence.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday

that he had spoken with Graham,

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.),

who chair the committees that

would develop policies men-

tioned by Trump in his address.

McConnell, who has been under

pressure from Democrats to take

up a bill on universal background

checks that passed the House ear-

lier this year, stressed that “Senate

Republicans are prepared to do

our part.”

“Only serious, bipartisan, bi-

cameral efforts will enable us to

continue this important work and

produce further legislation that

can pass the Senate, pass the

House, and earn the president’s

signature,” McConnell said in a

statement that never mentioned

the word “gun.”

That would almost certainly ex-

clude expanded background

checks — an effort that faltered in

the Senate in the aftermath of the

2012 mass shooting at Sandy

Hook Elementary School in New-

town, Conn., that led to the deaths

of 20 children and six school em-

ployees.

Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.)

and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.),

who wrote legislation that would

expand background checks to

nearly all firearm sales, each

spoke separately with Trump and

came away believing that the

president is willing to work on

strengthening background

checks.

But Toomey also acknowledged

that if the legislation came up in

the Senate, it would not pass. It

failed to advance in a Democratic-

led Senate, with only four GOP

senators supporting the legisla-

tion in 2013. Of them, only Toom-

ey and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine)

remain in office.

“This isn’t going to happen to-

morrow, and if we force a vote

tomorrow, then I think the vote

probably fails,” Toomey said. “So if

you want a successful outcome,

which is what I want, then I think

you work towards developing the

coalition and the consensus so

that you actually get the right

outcome.”

Other parts of Trump’s address

were far less well received, partic-

ularly by experts.

In particular, Trump’s mention

of mental health in his address

drew criticism, including his ref-

erence that “mental illness and

hatred pulls the trigger, not guns.”

Most studies on mental illness

and shootings have found only a

fraction of mass shooters have

diagnosed mental-health issues.

“These over-simplistic argu-

ments that mental health or video

games are causing shootings

aren’t going to get us to the solu-

tion,” said Arthur C. Evans Jr., a

psychologist and the CEO of the

American Psychological Associa-

tion. “My most generous way of

thinking about it is, it’s hard for

the average person to look at hor-

rific events and not conclude only

someone who’s out of their mind

would do that... a less generous

way of thinking about it is that it’s

a politically expedient way to

avoid talking about gun control or

safety laws around guns.”

Trump has also moved to loos-

en restrictions on the mentally ill

from buying guns. Early in his

administration, the Republican-

controlled Congress passed legis-

lation overturning an Obama-era

regulation that barred certain

people with mental-health issues

from purchasing firearms.

The president on Monday also

said he was directing the Justice

Department to draft a proposal

that would hasten the death pen-

alty for those convicted of com-

mitting certain federal hate

crimes and mass murders.

While the Justice Department

can already seek the death penalty

for federal firearms offenses in

which someone has been mur-

dered, the agency is focusing on

proposals that, in cases of mass

shootings, would expedite the

timeline for suspects to face the

death penalty, according to offi-

cials.

[email protected]

William Wan, Paul Kane, Felicia

Sonmez and Matt Zapotosky

contributed to this report.

Trump’s array of proposals to reduce gun violence elicits mixed response

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

White House staff members prepare President Trump’s speech on the teleprompter before he arrives in the Diplomatic Reception Room at

the White House to deliver a response to the weekend’s mass shootings, which left at least 31 people dead in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio.

Trump’s teleprompter

words stand in stark

contrast to his tweets

“He realizes that if you’re going to go take

a different position than you’ve taken before,

then you have to offset it somehow.”

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), discussing President Trump’s gun proposals

He supports some action

but doesn’t explain his

link to immigration