https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...-trump-1448020
El Paso congresswoman to Trump: Don't come here
Rep. Veronica Escobar said Monday that President Donald Trump "is not welcome" in her hometown of El Paso, Texas, as the city recovers from a mass shooting that killed 21 people and wounded more than two dozen.
"From my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning," Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes nearly all of El Paso, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "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."
Later Monday, Democratic 2020 hopeful and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke — who represented El Paso until earlier this year, when he was replaced by Escobar after his failed Senate campaign — joined the congresswoman in saying Trump shouldn't come to the city. He told a reporter from the Corpus Christi Caller Times that Trump has "helped to create what we saw in El Paso on Saturday. He's helped to produce the suffering that we are experiencing right now. This community needs to heal."
On Saturday afternoon, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, a city that has been in the national spotlight in recent months amid controversy over the treatment of migrants at a nearby detention facility. Authorities said the Walmart was at capacity as people from both El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city just across the border, were shopping for the new school year.
The suspect in the attack, a 21-year-old white man who is in custody, is believed to have posted a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto online shortly before opening fire, warning of a "Hispanic invasion of Texas." The Justice Department said Sunday that it is treating the shooting as an act of terrorism.
Escobar joined some politicians and 2020 Democratic candidates in linking Trump's rhetoric about minority communities to increased violence. On Monday, she said Trump came into "one of the safest communities in the nation" and months later, so did a gunman.
"Words have consequences," she said. "And 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."
The El Paso shooting came less than a week after a shooting at a garlic festival in Gilroy, Calif., that left three dead and a dozen injured. Hours after the El Paso shooting, a gunman opened fire in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine and wounding dozens more.
Trump offered his condolences for Dayton and El Paso over the weekend, telling reporters "hate has no place in our country." On Monday, he tweeted the country should never forget the victims and those who came before them, calling for bipartisan background check legislation for gun purchases. But he also suggested that such legislation be tied to his long-sought immigration proposals, likely making it a political nonstarter.
"We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!" he wrote.
Trump is expected to visit both cities this week. The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday issued advisories of VIP travel to El Paso and Dayton for this Wednesday.
Trump to visit El Paso. He is not welcome there.
