President Trump plans to visit El Paso after shooting — despite calls for him to stay away: report

“I would encourage the president’s staff members to have him do a little self-reflection," Veronica Escobar says

Published August 6, 2019 11:23AM (EDT)

 (Getty/Alex Wong)
(Getty/Alex Wong)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
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President Donald Trump plans to visit El Paso this week following the devastating mass shooting that occurred over the weekend, according to Mayor Dee Margo.

Some had already called for Trump to stay away from the border city, given the president’s own anti-immigrant bigotry and its apparent connections to the shooter’s motive.

“From my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “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.”

Escobar represents a district that contains most of El Paso.

Beto O’Rourke, who represented the district before Escobar and prior to his current bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, shared the same view.

“He’s helped to create what we saw in El Paso on Saturday,” he told reporter Eleanor Dearman of the El Paso Times. “He’s helped to produce the suffering that we are experiencing right now. This community needs to heal.”


By Cody Fenwick

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