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Trump Insulted El Paso’s GOP Mayor During ‘Comfort’ Visit

Trump Insulted El Paso’s GOP Mayor During ‘Comfort’ Visit

Trump couldn’t make it through his recent visit to El Paso without insulting the city’s mayor, according to PBS’s “Frontline.”

In an interview with Frontline, Republican Mayor Dee Margo relayed a conversation he had with Trump during a car ride from the airport.

“He said, ‘You’re a RINO,'” Margo said. RINO, or “Republican in name only,” is an insult insinuating that a particular politician is not conservative enough.

“I said, ‘No, sir. I am not a RINO,'” Margo said. “I said … ‘I simply corrected the misinformation you were given by [the Texas] attorney general, and that’s all I did.'”

Trump’s insult stemmed from a dispute following his State of the Union address in February, when Trump lied about violent crime in El Paso. In the speech, Trump claimed that a fence along the border turned El Paso from one of the most violent cities in America into a city with less violent crime.

After the speech, Margo called out Trump’s lie, which Trump was using to justify spending billions of U.S. taxpayer money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Trump has long since abandoned his campaign pledge that Mexico would pay for such a wall.)

Trump’s insult came during a visit that was already being criticized by the residents of El Paso. Trump ostensibly went to comfort a grieving city in the wake of a mass shooting where a white supremacist walked into a Walmart and killed 22 people. The shooter later told the police that he wanted to kill “Mexicans” and used other hateful and racist language about immigrants that bore a striking resemblance to that used by Trump.

Before his visit, El Paso’s Democratic congresswoman, Veronica Escobar, said Trump wasn’t welcome.

“Words have consequences. And the president has made my community and my people the enemy,” Escobar said. “He has told the country that we are people to be feared, people to be hated.”

One woman credited with saving at least 40 lives in the massacre did not mince words about Trump’s responsibility for what happened.

“You preach and you say things, and this is what happens,” Adria González said in a video posted after the shooting, gesturing to the crime scene at the site of the killings.

Trump visited El Paso in February for a campaign rally, and he wasn’t welcome at that time, either. The rally followed on the heels of Trump insulting the city during the State of the Union address.

To add further injury to the city, Trump has thus far refused to pay El Paso for debts incurred during the campaign rally. His campaign still owes the city more than $569,000 for providing security during the visit.

The mayor wasn’t even the only person Trump insulted while he was in town. During a visit to a local hospital, Trump used his time in the city to lie about the size of his February rally and attack former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic candidate for president and the person who formerly represented El Paso in Congress.

Trump was only in El Paso for a few hours last week, but even during his brief visit, he simply could not restrain himself or muster the appropriate presidential demeanor a grieving city would expect.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

White House Bars Reporters From Trump Meeting With Shooting Victims

White House Bars Reporters From Trump Meeting With Shooting Victims

The White House barred journalists from accompanying Trump Wednesday while he visited with the victims of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.

LA Times reporter Eli Stokols, the designated print pool reporter, noted the press strategy in his reports from the scene.

“Pool did not see POTUS arrive at or enter Miami Valley Hospital, but we are told he is already upstairs,” Stokols wrote from Dayton.

A few hours later, he noted a similar procedure took place in El Paso.

“POTUS arrived at University Hospital in El Paso at roughly 3 p.m. Pool did not see him enter,” Stokols wrote. “We are now holding in a hallway. Still unclear if anything here will be open to the pool.”

When asked why the press had been kept away, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the visit was “about the victims” and “not a photo-op.”

But it was a photo-op for Trump — a tightly controlled one that barred reporters so only White House staff could take the photos.

Shortly after leaving Dayton, Trump tweeted a video, created by the White House team, of him meeting with first responders, hospital staff, and survivors in Dayton. He also posted photographs taken by the administration of the meeting.

As he was promoting his own propaganda about his visit, Trump was also on the attack. As he flew from Dayton to El Paso — the other city devastated by a mass shooting over the weekend — he complained about Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who he met at the hospital in Ohio.

Brown and Whaley said they called on Trump to act on gun control measures in response to the shooting.

Trump claimed that their account of what happened during the visit “was a fraud.” But there isn’t a way to verify that because he kept the media away. And given his habit of lying, even about the the simplest things, his version of events cannot receive the benefit of the doubt.

Trump’s stage-managed trip avoided encounters with protesters who came out in force in both Ohio and Texas to rebuke him for his racism and bigotry.

In Dayton, crowds stood with an inflated “baby Trump” balloon and called on him to “do something” about gun violence. “We can end gun violence,” read one sign. Another said, “Words have consequences.”

The message was echoed in El Paso.

“Trump is coming to tell us, today here, that the violence is due to video games, mental health. Let me say this, and I’m going to say it clear and loud: Trump is responsible and he’s part of the problem,” said Fernando Garcia of Border Network for Human Rights at an “El Paso Strong” rally. “He is not welcome.”

The audience loudly cheered his statement.

Published with permission of The American Independent.