PITTSBURGH — A mourning family doesn’t want to meet him. Top members of his own party refuse to join him. The mayor has explicitly asked him not to come. And yet President Trump plans to visit this grief-stricken city Tuesday, amid accusations that he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday’s massacre inside a synagogue.
Congressional leaders from both parties — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) — have all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit, according to three officials familiar with matter.
So has at least one of the victims' families.
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who has called out “hate” in U.S. political speech since some of his congregants were gunned down, has said he plans to welcome the president.
“Hate is not political. It is not blue or red, it’s not male or female, it doesn’t know any of those divisions,” Myers told The Washington Post on Monday.
However, Tree of Life’s former rabbi, Chuck Diamond, told the Daily Beast that Trump’s rhetoric was “awful.” Like Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto (D), Diamond asked the president to postpone his trip until the community has finished mourning.
“I would plead with the president to wait,” Diamond said. “I also hope he would come in and offer his condolences after we have buried them and had a chance to mourn. ”