WASHINGTON _ Amid allegations this his own caustic rhetoric about immigrants prompted a killer to gun down 22 people at an El Paso Walmart last week, President Donald Trump headed to the border city on Wednesday to offer his condolences.
He did not go quietly. And he faces a decidedly mixed reception when he arrives in El Paso in the afternoon, after a stop in Dayton, Ohio, site of a mass shooting early Sunday.
El Paso's mayor agreed to meet with Trump, but the local congresswoman snubbed him, saying she refused to provide political cover for a president whose rhetoric the gunman cited in a manifesto explaining his motives for driving 600 miles from North Texas to El Paso to repel so-called invaders.
"I refuse to be an accessory to his visit," said freshman Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat in an online post. "I refuse to join without a dialogue about the pain his racist and hateful words & actions have caused our community and country."
At the White House, Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One that mental illness is to blame for these rampages_ not him or any other politician the killers admire, support or quote. He vowed to press for tougher background checks for gun buyers and to find ways to tamp down white supremacy and curb hate groups.
"I don't want to put guns into the hands of mentally unstable people," he said.
But he vehemently deflected any role in the rampage, perpetrated by a killer whose racist manifesto echoed much of his own anti-immigrant rhetoric. He insisted that his own rhetoric "brings people together."
"My critics are political people," several of them "very low in the polls," he said. "These are people that are looking for political gain."
Hours before leaving the White House, Trump revived his attacks on Escobar's predecessor in Congress, Beto O'Rourke, calling on him to "be quiet!" out of respect for victims and law enforcement. And he revived a schoolyard taunt that O'Rourke uses a "phony" Hispanic nickname for political advantage; in fact O'Rourke's parents were calling their son by that common nickname for Robert since before he left the hospital as a newborn.
A presidential candidate and last year's nominee against Sen. Ted Cruz, O'Rourke has long railed against Trump's immigration policies and he embarrassed Trump by organizing a large counter-rally when the president campaigned in El Paso in February.
O'Rourke hit back an hour after the president's post, tweeting that "22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism."
"El Paso will not be quiet and neither will I," he wrote.
On Monday, Trump delivered a televised address from the White House in which he denounced the killings and white supremacy but also blamed violent video games. He rejected critics' assertions that his relentless attacks on immigrants and unfounded claims that migrants bring disease and that their ranks are filled with rapists and murders played any role in the rampage.
A 21-year-old from North Texas carried out the attack at a bustling Walmart Supercenter that left 22 people dead and dozens injured. Eight lived in Ciudad Juarez, El Paso's sister city across the Rio Grande, and Mexico's government has demanded better protection for its citizens in the United States. The rest were local residents.
Democrats have condemned Trump for stirring ethnic tensions.
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called him a "white nationalist and a racist" who is "splitting this country apart" at the National Press Club on Tuesday night.
Trump emerged from the White House residence at 8:13 a.m. and spoke with reporters before boarding Marine One.
"I am concerned about the rise of any group of hate. I don't like it ... . Whether it's white supremacy ... whether it's Antifa" _ a leftist group, he said.
