Pittsburgh Mayor to Trump: No Way

Bill Peduto resists the idea that houses of worship need armed guards
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 28, 2018 12:30 PM CDT
Pittsburgh Mayor to Trump: No Way
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto speaks with members of the media during a news conference in the aftermath of a deadly shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

President Trump's answer to the mass murder Saturday at a Pittsburgh synagogue: They needed armed guards. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto's response: Not so fast. "I don't think that the answer to this problem is solved by having our synagogues, mosques and churches filled with armed guards or our schools filled with armed guards," he said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, NBC News reports. "I think we're dealing with an irrational person who acted irrationally. And trying to create laws around that is not the way that we should govern." The mayor didn't speak up for gun-law reform but noted he's in a bipartisan group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. For more around the Sunday dial:

  • Divide and console: "And, honestly, I think this president’s whole modus operandi is to divide us," said Rep. Adam Schiff on CNN's State of the Union, per the Hill. "...And it’s not enough that on the day of a tragedy he says the right words, if, every day of the year, he’s saying things to bring us into conflict with each other."

  • Bigger than that: "But it's more than what one man does," Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt told ABC's This Week after noting Trump's racially tinged rhetoric, per ABC News. "Whether you're an elected official meeting with Nazi sympathizers or bringing Holocaust deniers to the House of Representatives or if you’re a candidate for office invoking wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish financiers like George Soros manipulating world events or if you’re a religious leader referring to Jews as 'termites,' all of this is absolutely unacceptable."
  • Synagogue visit: "We actually conducted a site visit [to the Pittsburgh synagogue] with our protective security adviser in the area," Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News Sunday, per Politico. "This is something we often do."
  • "Every possible action": "Do not come. You will not be allowed in," Nielsen said about the migrant caravan moving through Mexico, per the Washington Examiner. "I think what the president is making clear is every possible action, authority, executive program is on the table to ensure it is clear that there is a right and legal way to come into this country, and no other ways will be tolerated."
  • Hurt the thugs: "Are we going to do fake sanctions?" Sen. Rand Paul told Politico, saying he plans to block a multi-billion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "Are we going to pretend to do something by putting sanctions on 15 thugs? Or are we going to do something that hurts them?”
In his synagogue comments, Trump misspoke about 9/11.
(More politics stories.)

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