Trump finally emerges from Bedminster after two mass shootings

'Hate has no place' 

After a weekend spent largely out of public view, President Donald Trump emerged from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf resort on Sunday afternoon and offered his first public remarks to a nation rocked by back to back mass shootings.

“Hate has no place in our country,” Trump told reporters.

Before heading back to the White House, Trump promised: “We’re going to take care of it.”

What exactly he was going to take care of, and how he was going to take care of “it” was not clear from the president’s brief remarks.

Will he be taking on the issue of gun control amid renewed calls for reforms by Democrats on Sunday?

Will he tone down his rhetoric that Democrats have cast as racist and xenophobic, and have blamed for inciting violence?

Trump promised to speak more from the White House on Monday.

Stay tuned.

At Bedminster

On Saturday, as reports emerged of a shooting at an El Paso Walmart store, and as the death toll steadily climbed throughout the day to 20 dead and dozens more injured, Trump offered his condolences via tweet from Bedminster, but also took time to crash a wedding being held at his golf club, according to social media posts.

As families and friends mourned the loss of loved ones in Texas — including a 25-year-old mother who died shielding her infant son from the shooter — Trump took to Twitter to praise a champion boxer, and repost tweets from supporters defending the president's record on race.

As the nation woke up Sunday to news of a second mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, Trump dispatched a two-in-one condolence tweet: "God bless the people of El Paso, Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio."

Mulvaney: ‘No politician is to blame'

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney asserted that “no politician is to blame” for the pair of shootings in an interview with ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

Mulvaney’s comments came as Democratic lawmakers squarely blamed Trump for egging on white supremacists through his divisive rhetoric and by not fiercely condemning the white nationalist movement.

"This was a sick person, the person in Dayton was a sick person," Mulvaney told ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl. "No politician is to blame for that. The person who was responsible here are the people who pulled the trigger. We need to figure out how to kind of create less of those kinds of people as a society and not trying to figure out who gets blamed going into the next election."

Federal authorities have said they are treating the El Paso shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and potential hate crime, with local officials saying the 21-year-old shooter was likely targeting Hispanics. An online manifesto that El Paso police said is “solidly” believed to be written by the shooter, listed grievances against immigrants and contended there was a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Though the shooter's beliefs reportedly predate Trump's election, Democrats were quick to note that the shooter's language mirrored phrases used by Trump on the campaign trail.

Mulvaney, when asked by Karl if Trump’s frequent use of the word “invasion” to describe illegal immigration, and his calls for four congresswoman of color to “go back” to other countries, were dangerous, replied: "There's no benefit here to trying to make this a political issue. ... This is a social issue."

Newsday’s Laura Figueroa Hernandez with a recap of Mulvaney’s comments here.

Inciter in Chief?

The field of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls in denouncing Saturday’s attacks, also argued that Trump's  incendiary remarks casting immigrants as "rapists" and criminals, and his string of racially incidiary tweets played a role in recent attacks by white nationalists.

Former Texas congressman Beto O’ Rourke, who hails from El Paso, told CNN’s “State of the Union” the president “doesn’t just tolerate — he encourages the type of open racism” that leads to violence. O’Rourke said Trump’s characterization of white nationalist protesters as “very fine people” following deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 “sends a message of what is permissible and what he encourages."

"Let's be very clear about what is causing this and who the president is. He is an open avowed racist and encouraging more racism in this country," O'Rourke said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey told CNN that Trump "is responsible because he is stoking fears and hatred and bigotry." Sen. Kamala Harris of California, appearing on the same show, when asked about Trump, said, "I believe there's consequence to his words."

Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, appearing on ABC’s “This Week” said Trump “very early on made the choice to divide people for his own political benefit and these are some of the consequences we're seeing of that."

"There's one person that's directly responsible for the shooting in El Paso and that's the shooter," Castro said. “At the same time, as our national leader, you have a role to play in either fanning the flames of division or trying to bring Americans of different backgrounds together.”

‘Mexico’s indignation’

Six Mexican nationals were among the shoppers killed in El Paso on Saturday, and nine others were wounded, according to Mexican officials.

The shootings sparked condemnation from Mexico’s top officials who said they planned on taking legal action to ensure the safety of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard in a video posted to Twitter on Sunday said Mexico’s President Andres Lopez Obrador “has instructed me to ensure that Mexico’s indignation translates into ... efficient, prompt, expeditious and forceful legal actions for Mexico to take a role and demand that conditions are established that protect ... Mexicans in the United States.”

Mexico’s ambassador to Washington, Martha Bárcena, tweeted: “The intentionality of the attack against the Mexicans and the Latino community in El Paso is frightening. NO to hate speech. NO to xenophobic discourse.”

Janison: Tracking the Veep

There are several good reasons to check in every now and then on the subordinate doings of Vice President Mike Pence, writes Newsday’s Dan Janison.

That's because he might run for president in 2024. Or he could suddenly be thrust into the presidency in an emergency.

Trump’s No. 2 has had his share of gaffes and fact check worthy moments in the past month including abruptly canceling a speech at a drug addiction treatment center in New Hampshire, after learning that the center was being investigated for shipments of illegal opioids.

Read a full roundup in Janison’s column here.

What else is happening

• White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said China must stop committing “seven deadly sins” before the Trump Administration lifts a series of tariffs. Navarro’s list includes calls for China to “stop stealing our intellectual property,” and “stop hacking our computers.” The Hill has a full recap.
• White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller has aggressively been pushing the Department of Homeland Security to enact a new set of restrictions that would allow the agency to bar legal immigrants from obtaining green cards if they receive government benefits, such as subsidized housing, according to emails obtained by Politico.
• The White House Press Office has temporarily suspended the press credentials of Playboy magazine’s White House correspondent, Brian Karem, a move Karem described as an attempt to stifle his hard line of questioning. The White House claims the 30-day suspension stems from an altercation between Karem and former White House policy adviser Sebastian Gorka at a Rose Garden event. The White House Correspondents Association has vowed to fight the suspension which comes after an unsuccessful effort by the White House to revoke the press credential of CNN’s Jim Acosta.