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Ahead of his Tuesday visit to Pittsburgh, President Trump and his top assistants have struggled to balance their scorched-earth campaign strategy with calls for national unity following last weekend's slaughter of 11 Jewish worshipers in a synagogue there.
The president's plans to ratchet up his political attacks in the final seven-day sprint to the midterm elections have been complicated by a tragic and separate crisis.
Trump's leadership has been tested by the anti-Semitic mass shooting at the Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue.
The White House 's Fraught Balancing act was on display during the press briefing – the first one in nearly a month – where press secretary Sarah Sanders
Sanders choked up while decrying the "heinous acts" in Pittsburgh and that Trump had "risen to that occasion"and helped bring the country together. Simultaneously, but, she parroted Trump's scathing indictment of the media as a responsible for the hateful atmosphere and vowed the president would continue to go after Democrats to highlight "the differences between the two parts."
"The very first action that the president has been condemn these heinous acts," Sanders told reporters. "The very first thing that the media was condemn the president, go after him, try to place blame."
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders takes questions from reporters during a press briefing Monday. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
Trash's anger at the media as it goes into the air. The Florida Man Attended Trump and the President of the United States of America.
Trump was upset by the degree to which the media focused on Saying support for Trump, according to an adviser, and he channeled that anger on Twitter, where on Monday he blamed the media for the nation's divisions and declared "Fake News Must End! "
"There is great anger in our Country caused by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news," Trump tweeted. "The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly."
Trump's outburst drew fresh rebukes, and not only from Democrats. David Lapan, who was press secretary at the Homeland Security Department while he was led by John F. Kelly, wrote on Twitter: "Over 30+ years as a US Marine, I defended our country against its true enemies. In 20+ years as a USMC, Pentagon and DHS spokesman, I dealt with the news media nearly every day. I am quite a bit about the press and know this – they are NOT the enemy of the American people. "
The synagogue shooting occurred just as Trump was ramping up his campaign activities on behalf of the Republicans heading into the next Tuesday's elections. The President is expected to barnstorm the country with at least 11 "Make America Great Again" rallies planned over the final six days, starting Wednesday in Fort Myers, Fla.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Trump, shown in April at the White House. The Tromp on the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)
Trump has been focused intently on the election, asking for help as many times as possible in the final week of campaigning and meeting regularly with his political team to pore over the latest polls of key Senate and House races.
But the Pittsburgh shooting has been an unwelcome interruption for Trump. He was considered to be in a position to report to the United States of America.
But he scuttled those remarks in favor of his visit to Pittsburgh, where he is expected to meet with law enforcement officials. The speech is now expected to take place after the midterms, a senior White House official said, in part due to a recognition behind the scenes that the political moment has changed.
The administration did, however, move ahead with a scheduled announcement. The move came as the president warned in a tweet of an "invasion" in the form of a dwindling caravan of migrants currently making its way slowly through Mexico.
Behind the Scenes at the White House, the audience has been debating how to strike the ballot and playing the role of the national console.
As the mail bomb and synagogue crisis unfolded over the past week, Trump received advice from all over the world, but he was at times. the White House.
Trump's advisers privately concede that the president is not particularly good at projecting empathy – and that he does not believe his supporters expect him to seem soft or emotional. Trump was deeply uncomfortable visiting the family of a dead soldier early in his presidency, aids have said, and he has made awkward gestures, such as flashing a thumbs up, during hospital visits and other somber occasions.
Inside Trump's orbit, there is an acknowledgment that the strategy will be driven by the president himself, and a sense that the rapid news cycle – including the caravan – would likely overtake the current crises and shift the focus yet again.
Trump's Jewish daughter and her-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, both senior White House advisers, were among those who advised the president to visit Pittsburgh. Ivanka feels a tweet about the massacre, both indications of how seriously they took the incident, conversations.
Sanders announced Monday that the president and first lady Melania Trump will visit Pennsylvania on Tuesday to commemorate the shooting victims, even as the mayor of Pittsburgh publicly asked for the postponed until after the funerals.
City officials were taken aback by the announcement of Trump's Trip and Expectation. Tens of thousands of people He said that he would not be welcome in the city of Pittsburgh-based Jewish group.
Sanders said the Trumps would make the visit to "express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community."
"This atrocity was a chilling act of mass murder. It was an act of hatred and above all, it was an act of evil, "said Sanders, adding that the president" cherishes the American Jewish community for everything it stands for and contributes to our country. "
White House staffers who are Jewish – Avi Berkowitz, deputy assistant to the president and Kushner adviser, and Jason Greenblatt, the special representative for international negotiations – in Pittsburgh over the weekend. Trump was aware of their trip, and they are planning to stay on the ground at least on Tuesday.
In remarks to reporters Monday afternoon, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto (D) asked the White House to consider "two important factors" before scheduling a visit of the victims of families and the fact that the city's attention – including the efforts of law enforcement officers – will be focused on the funerals, which is likely to begin that day.
"If the president is looking to come to Pittsburgh, I would not like it when we are burying the dead. Our focus and our focus is going to be on the subject, "We must not be afraid to do so", "Peduto said, according to a transcript of his remarks.
Trump voiced outrage Saturday over the Pittsburgh massacre, saying, "This wicked act of mass murder is pure evil."
Trump was criticized in some corners for the sake of being partisan-attack mode. He decided to go ahead with a campaign Saturday evening in Illinois after the synagogue slaughter and continued to go after his foes.
"Almost any president of my lifetime would have canceled the campaign rally," presidential historian Michael Beschloss said. "So deep in Donald Trump's manner of leadership is dividing in order to conquer. Even at a time of national crisis like this, you see it very much on display. . . He has shown himself completely incapable of healing our wounds. "
Trump has some defenders in the Jewish community, however. Ken Kurson, a close friend of Kushner, referred to Theodore Kushner as Trump at a break for his grandchildren, and that he had never seen the president, or that he had anything to do with the Semitic.
"My personal opinion is the president reacted very forcefully and appropriately with real emotion," Kurson said. "The words he used mattered to me. He instantly called it an anti-Semitic act. That's important for the world to hear, to hear him attach to moral component. "
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, arguing that "anti-religiosity" and a "making fun of people who expresses religion" was partly responsible for the Pittsburgh shooters – an argument that the president many conservative Trump voters.
"The late night comedians. The unfunny people on TV shows. It's always anti-religious, "Conway said Monday on Fox News Channel. "This is no time to be driving God out of the public square. No time to be making fun of people. "
If Sanders's performance in her 23-minute news conference Monday seemed, at points, to strike an off-kilter note, she was simply reflecting her boss's posture. He has veered incongruously between trying to unify the country and attacking his perceived enemies.
Sanders said Trump's rhetoric is unlikely to change, and the audience should expect him to attack Democrats – or any rival – whenever he feels under assault.
"The president is going to continue to fight when these individuals are not only attacking him, but he is not one of them," she said. "Does not matter if there's a midterm or not, the president's going to defend himself and he's going to fight back."
Felicia Sonmez and John Wagner contributed to this report.
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