Mayor asked president to delay visit until after victims are buried while some residents say politics should pause for grief

Donald Trump faces an uneasy welcome in Pittsburgh on Tuesday after the city’s governor and mayor said they would not join the president on his visit following Saturday’s antisemitic mass shooting.

Trump was expected to visit the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where 11 people were shot and killed at the Tree of Life synagogue, despite a request from the city’s mayor asking him not to come.

Trump is expected to arrive a few hours after the first funerals for victims of the attack, and will be joined by his wife Melania – and his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who are practising Orthodox Jews.

A spokeswoman for Democratic Governor Tom Wolf said the governor would not join Trump, and based his decision on input from the victims’ families, who told him they did not want the president to be there on the day their loved ones were being buried.

The city’s Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto also said he would not greet Trump.

More than 1,000 people poured into Rodef Shalom, one of Pittsburgh’s largest synagogues, on Tuesday for the funerals of two brothers who were killed in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history.

Cecil and David Rosenthal, who were both in their 50s, were among the 11 people who were killed. Services for Dr Jerry Rabinowitz, hailed as a pioneer in treating Aids who was reportedly shot after rushing to help the wounded, were also being held Tuesday. Funerals for other victims will be held through Friday in a week of mourning.

Trump to visit Pittsburgh following synagogue massacre Read more

Peduto had asked Trump to delay his visit until those killed had been buried, saying his presence would strain security resources.

“We did try to get the message out to the White House that our priority tomorrow is the first funeral,” Peduto said on Monday night on CNN.

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“I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week, and if he were to visit, choose a different time to be able to do it,” he said.

The mayor, Pittsburgh’s county executive, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, House speaker, Paul Ryan, Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, all declined a White House invitation to join Trump in Pittsburgh, CNN reported.

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Trump is expected to meet first responders and community leaders. It was not immediately clear whether Trump and his family would meet the victims’ families.

“Well, I’m just going to pay my respects,” Trump told Fox News on Monday night. “I’m also going to the hospital to see the officers and some of the people that were so badly hurt.”

Victims of the attack included a 97-year-old woman, a husband-and-wife, Rabinowitz, and the Rosenthal brothers, an inseparable pair with developmental disabilities beloved at the synagogue, where they never missed services.

“We are trying to put the pieces back together. People are still in various degrees of grief, shock and dismay. My focus over the next few days is to tend to my congregation,” Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi at the Tree of Life synagogue, told CNN early on Tuesday.

“Words of hate must cease. When we speak words of hate, when you speak ill of other candidates, America listens to you, they get their instructions from you, the leaders,” he said. “When they speak words of hate, no matter which party, people say: ‘You’re doing it, I can do that too’. Tone down the hate, speak words of decency and love. People look to our leaders.”

Residents of Squirrel Hill were divided over the president’s visit. For Marianne Novy, Trump isn’t wanted “unless he really changes his ways”. For David Dvir, politics should take a pause for grief: “It’s our president, and we need to welcome him.”

The visit comes as Trump struggles to balance appeals for national unity with partisan campaign rhetoric just a week before contentious midterm elections.

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Barry Werber, 76, who said he survived the massacre by hiding in a dark storage closet as the gunman rampaged through the building, said he hoped Trump wouldn’t visit, noting that the president has embraced the politically fraught label of “nationalist”. Werber said the Nazis were nationalists.

“It’s part of his program to instigate his base,” Werber said, and “bigots are coming out of the woodwork.”

Novy, 73, a retired college English professor, said she signed an open letter asking Trump not to come to Pittsburgh. “His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killed,” she said.

Just minutes before the synagogue attack, the shooter apparently used social media to rage against Hias, a Jewish organization that resettles refugees under contract with the US government.

Dvir, 52, the owner of Murray Avenue Locksmith in Squirrel Hill, said of Trump, “I think he made some mistakes, but he is a great president.” He added that it would be “a shame” if the community protested against the president’s visit.

Local and religious leaders are also divided on whether Trump should visit. Peduto, a Democrat who has rejected Trump’s call after the shooting to put armed guards in houses of worship, told reporters ahead of the announced visit that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences.

“If the president is looking to come to Pittsburgh, I would ask that he not do so while we are burying the dead,” Peduto said. “Our attention and our focus is going to be on them, and we don’t have public safety that we can take away from what is needed in order to do both.”