michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: President Trump visits two cities in mourning. The scene in Dayton and El Paso. It’s Thursday, August 8.

mitch smith What’s it like being down here, seeing the memorials and seeing this entertainment district kind of become this place of mourning? archived recording It’s very somber. I mean, it’s very — somewhat emotional still, you know? Still a lot of grief. You can see it. You can feel it, hear it. It’s going to take a while to recover from this, but Dayton will.

[music]

mitch smith

This is Mitch.

michael barbaro

Hey, Mitch, it’s Michael. How are you?

mitch smith

I’m good. Quite a day here in Dayton.

michael barbaro

Yeah. So Mitch Smith, you’re in Dayton talking to the people there on the day of the president’s visit. What exactly was the president walking into there?

mitch smith

Sure. Well, President Trump landed in an Ohio that, in a remarkably short period of time since nine people were killed in an entertainment district on Sunday morning, had started to move from anguish and grief and shock to calls for action and some concrete proposals on what action might look like.

archived recording (SINGING) Amazing grace —

mitch smith

So the night of the vigil on Sunday, the governor, a Republican, kind of launched into the speech that every politician from either party gives after a tragedy like this —

archived recording (mike dewine) This amazing crowd is stunning. Just goes on and on and on, and I think it’s a real testament to the love and the resiliency of this great and wonderful community.

mitch smith

— that was kind of long on condolences and short on policy, and the people in Dayton just weren’t having it.

archived recording Do something! archived recording (mike dewine) We’re here tonight — archived recording Do something! Do something! archived recording (mike dewine) We know that we —

mitch smith

I was standing probably half a block down, and I really couldn’t hear a word he was saying. They were shouting over him. He kind of faltered on with his speech, but you couldn’t hear him.

archived recording (CHANTING) Do something! Do something! Do something! Do something!

mitch smith

So Tuesday morning I’m at the Statehouse in Columbus, an hour and 15 minutes up the road, and again he’s coming to the microphone. We’re in this closed press room, but someone in the hallway shouts —

archived recording Do something! Come on, do something. archived recording (mike dewine) Good morning, everyone.

mitch smith

— do something, that same cry at the vigil on Sunday.

archived recording (mike dewine) Some chanted, “Do something,” and they were absolutely right. We must do something, and that is exactly what we are going to do. Today, I’m announcing the following initiatives, the following actions.

mitch smith

He came out with a series of policy proposals —

archived recording (mike dewine) We can do this. We can do the things that I outlined today.

mitch smith

— that would include expanding background checks, that would allow the police to take guns from people that a judge deems dangerous.

archived recording (mike dewine) Now’s our time as a state to come together — Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives — everybody come together.

mitch smith

So around the same time that Governor DeWine is having his news conference, word starts to spread that President Trump is coming to Dayton the next morning. So Governor DeWine, he’s a Republican. He’s very supportive of this. He says it’s part of the president’s job to comfort people who are hurting, to be there in times of tragedy. The mayor of Dayton, she’s a Democrat.

archived recording (nan whaley) His rhetoric has been painful for many in our community.

mitch smith

She has a different take.

archived recording (nan whaley) And I think that people should stand up and say they’re not happy if they’re not happy that he’s coming.

michael barbaro

So from the start, there’s a division over the president’s trip to Ohio.

mitch smith

Yeah, so the same division we’re seeing among Ohio’s leaders on the president’s visit is also playing out among Ohio’s voters. So Ohio, of course, as a whole, long a purple state, swung pretty hard toward President Trump. But this is a very purple area of a fairly purple state. Dayton’s county voted for President Trump in 2016 by less than 1 percentage point. So it’s about as purple as you can get. And so out on the ground on Wednesday morning as the president’s preparing to land —

archived recording (speaker 1) He is a liar. He is a hater. He’s a racist. He’s a misogynist. archived recording (speaker 2) You’re a hater. archived recording (speaker 1) And he has been — archived recording (speaker 2) You’re the one — archived recording (speaker 1) — since he rode down that gold [expletive] elevator.

mitch smith

You have Republicans, people with Trump flags, people who are standing there with signs that say “dump Trump” kind of standing right next to each other on the sidewalk, right next to these memorials in this city that remains in a state of very fresh grief and shock, and all waiting to see — no one exactly knows where the president is going to go once he gets to town, all wondering if they’re going to get a glimpse of the president himself and with very different things they would want to tell him if they did.

mitch smith Absolutely. So you said you live in Dayton, then? jay mcguire (ph) I live south of Dayton. mitch smith Live south of Dayton, O.K.

mitch smith

One of the first people I met was a man named Jay McGuire (ph).

mitch smith You lived here a long time? Or — jay mcguire (ph) Yeah, about 50-some years. mitch smith O.K., I think that counts.

mitch smith

He was just standing on the corner, no signs of any type, just out there to see what’s going on. He paid his respects, he said, to the nine people who died.

jay mcguire (ph) I heard the news Sunday morning, my first call was to my youngest son, because I know he frequents — it was 7 o’clock in the morning. I woke him up. I was glad to hear his voice. mitch smith And he was O.K.? jay mcguire (ph) Yeah. mitch smith Good. Thank goodness. And so you were worried that he could have been one of the victims? jay mcguire (ph) Well, my other son just missed Las Vegas because he got called back in to do a flight. He’s a pilot. And he would have gone to that concert. mitch smith Oh, my gosh. jay mcguire (ph) It’s getting too close to home is what I’m starting to feel. mitch smith Absolutely. Absolutely. So as I’m sure you know, the president’s landing in 90 minutes or so. He’s going to pay his respects here. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? What do you make of him coming? jay mcguire (ph) I think it’s a good thing, because if he didn’t come, he would have caught hell for not coming. But now he’s coming. He’s going to catch hell. But you know what? We need a little uplift. mitch smith Can he provide that, do you think? jay mcguire (ph) I think so.

mitch smith

Not long after that, I met a man named Ken Williams (ph), who also lives in the Dayton area.

mitch smith Did I spell it right? ken williams (ph) Yes, sir. mitch smith And what brought you out here, today? Why did you want to be out in the Oregon District today? ken williams (ph) Support the community, number one. I was actually supposed to be here Saturday night at Ned Peppers with a couple other friends, and family came in town from Florida and Detroit. So — mitch smith So you weren’t there. ken williams (ph) I wasn’t there, lucky. mitch smith So you’re saying, had things gone even a little bit differently, you may have been — ken williams (ph) I would have definitely been there. mitch smith O.K. Being out here this morning, obviously the president’s landing fairly shortly. Was that part of your decision to come today? ken williams (ph) Yes. mitch smith Yeah. Why? Are you excited he’s coming — ken williams (ph) To let him know that — mitch smith — not excited he’s coming? What do you make of it? ken williams (ph) It’s a double-edged sword. One, excited to be able to voice an opinion, if allowed. mitch smith What would that opinion be? ken williams (ph) Do something. It’s right there on the sign. Do something. What are you going to do? Give us a game plan. Give us a schematic. Give us something. You don’t have to give us specifics, but give us something. mitch smith You said it was a double-edged sword, and then I kind of cut you off. You gave me the bad. Was there a good for him coming, or do you see a positive here, or not really? ken williams (ph) The good would be if he’s actually going to do something, if he’s going to talk to these people that are standing out here and the people that live in this community, people that live around this community. Are you going to listen to what we have to say? Are you going to respond to what we have to say, or are you going to blow us off again? mitch smith Would you welcome the chance to have that conversation? ken williams (ph) Definitely. mitch smith O.K.

mitch smith

Three days after this mass shooting, you had people who showed up with pro-Trump signs and anti-Trump signs, not American flags. That wasn’t what you saw for this presidential visit. It was very much “what did you think of the president?” for many people. And so that really kind of colored the morning. At one point, a police major came up to a group of protesters —

speaker I don’t want to talk about that. What I want to talk about is that the businesses are calling me, and they’re in tears. You guys are upsetting them.

mitch smith

She said that she’d been getting calls from business owners and workers down there, some of whom who really haven’t rested since the shooting happened.

speaker A lot of them were here the night of the incident. They haven’t had any rest. They’re suffering right now.

mitch smith

This whole demonstration and counter-demonstration and gathering and all the news cameras was just too much, and it was making it worse. And the police major was like, you have a right to be here. You have a right to say what you want to say —

speaker But out of respect for my community, I’m just asking for a favor, if you guys can just take it down the street away from this business.

mitch smith

Would you think about moving up a few blocks and doing it somewhere just a little bit different, a little bit removed from the rawness of this pain? And pretty much everybody stayed put.

michael barbaro

So what happens when the president finally arrives?

mitch smith

Sure. So he lands in the morning, gets in a motorcade. He goes to a hospital that treated some of the victims the night of the shooting, and he meets with some victims there. He meets with a large group of first responders, and he met with some of Ohio’s political leaders. And then he got in his motorcade and flew to El Paso.

michael barbaro

So he did not go to the Oregon District, where people like Ken had gone to pay their respects, and where they had hoped to see the president at the site of the shooting and to be able to talk to him?

mitch smith

He did not. There were people there to protest him if he did. There were people there to cheer him if he came. There were people like Ken, who just wanted the chance to talk to him. He didn’t go there. The mayor actually said that may have been a wise decision. That was one she supported, that judging from the reaction at the vigil on Sunday, people there maybe weren’t ready or didn’t want to have the president be present there.

michael barbaro

Mitch, thank you very much.

mitch smith

Thank you for having me.

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michael barbaro

After the break, my colleague Natalie Kitroeff on the scene in El Paso.

natalie kitroeff

Michael Crowley, you cover the White House, and you’re in El Paso now. Help us understand what’s been happening in the days since the shooting there.

michael crowley

Well, what’s different in El Paso from what happened in Dayton is that, first of all, more than twice as many people were killed at the Walmart here in El Paso. The other and, I think, more politically explosive factor is that minutes before the shooting here, a manifesto was posted online that may indicate a motive in the attack, and it is a manifesto that is anti-immigrant and clearly racist. And it also echoes many of the themes and, in some cases, the very language that President Trump has used for months and years in his crusade to clamp down on illegal immigration and beef up border security. And in El Paso in particular, there was a real sense that President Trump should not come to the city, that he bears culpability for what happened and that he was, essentially, not welcome.

archived recording (dee margo) President Trump called me yesterday. He was very gracious in the call.

michael crowley

The mayor of El Paso, while saying that he would receive President Trump and basically saying that he had an inherent respect for the office of the presidency, did not at all make it clear that he was looking forward to having him here or, indeed, that he was welcome.

archived recording (dee margo) And I want to clarify for the political spin that this is the office of the mayor of El Paso in an official capacity welcoming the office of the president of the United States, which I consider is my formal duty.

natalie kitroeff

So it sounds like things were pretty fraught before Trump even touched down.

michael crowley

Extremely fraught.

archived recording You’ve been very clear that you believe the president is a racist. Is the president a white supremacist? archived recording (beto o'rourke) He is. He’s also made that very clear.

michael crowley

Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso who is now running for president, gave several interviews after the shooting in which he explicitly called President Trump a racist —

archived recording (beto o'rourke) Connect the dots about what he’s been doing in this country. He’s not tolerating racism. He’s promoting racism. He’s not tolerating violence. He’s inciting racism and violence in this country.

michael crowley

— and said that Mr. Trump had no business coming to El Paso. And Donald Trump, as he often does, counterattacked on Twitter.

archived recording The president tweeting, “O’Rourke has a phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage.”

michael crowley

Made fun of his name and told him to be quiet.

archived recording O’Rourke firing back in a tweet of his own, saying, “22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism. El Paso will not be quiet, and neither will I.”

natalie kitroeff

So what does it feel like on the ground there?

michael crowley I’m at the scene of Saturday’s shooting —

michael crowley

The first thing I did this morning was to go to the memorial site.

michael crowley — where there are dozens of people gathered in the heat leaving memorials, putting up signs, candles, balloons, tributes to the victims.

michael crowley

And I spoke there to a woman named Rosemary Rojas (ph) —

rosemary rojas (ph) My age is — I’m a grandmother. That’s my age.

michael crowley

— who described herself as a political and social activist.

rosemary rojas (ph) I got a call that morning from my granddaughter.

michael crowley

And she had two family members who were at the Walmart at the time of the shooting —

rosemary rojas (ph) She told me that my son and my other granddaughter were in the Walmart, and they were able to escape through the tire department.

michael crowley

— including a granddaughter who, she said, is still quite traumatized and gets startled if she hears a sound like keys dropping on the floor.

michael crowley So President Trump is on his way here. He’ll be here in a couple of hours, and I wondered whether you think that’s a helpful and useful thing, for the president to come visit. rosemary rojas (ph) For not my president to come here and visit is an insult to the people that have suffered these tremendous oppressive conditions. Not only is it an insult to us, we see him as him coming to bathe in the glory of this blood bath that his rhetoric has created. And I’m telling you right now that he is not welcome here. We don’t want him here. His words are empty to us. michael crowley It’s hard to tell in the sun. All right, thank you, bye. Would you mind by starting out telling me your name, age, and where you’re from? adolpho telles My name is Adolpho Telles. I happen to be chairman of the Republican Party in El Paso County.

michael crowley

On the other side, I spoke to a man named Adolpho Telles, who is a local Republican official. And he is a supporter of President Trump who thinks that it’s a good thing that the president is coming here. He believes the president has said the right things in the wake of the shooting —

adolpho telles I thought he had some very good remarks, and he talked about it. You know, it’s time for us to come together and heal together.

michael crowley

— and has no problem with the president coming to try to console and comfort the city.

adolpho telles The fact that he’s here in El Paso, the fact that he’s supporting the people that were hurt — who are a lot of Hispanics — and the fact that he’s visiting with law enforcement — because it was a carnage. And for law enforcement to see that, that’s going to have an impact on them also, plus the rest of the community. I mean, it’s positive that he’s here to let us know that we’ve got the White House here to support us in what we need, and that’s a very positive thing.

michael crowley

And actually, while I was interviewing Adolfo —

michael crowley And sorry to interrupt you. It seems like something’s kind of bubbling up over there. Do you have any idea why people are arguing?

michael crowley

You know, all of a sudden I started to hear shouting and chanting, and I could see that the crowd had sort of condensed.

michael crowley It looks like a chant has come up, and state troopers arrived.

michael crowley

And when I went over to see what was happening, I saw that the crowd had gathered around a woman.

michael crowley I see a woman in a red “Make America Great Again” hat who is surrounded by TV cameras and seems very upset.

michael crowley

People were shouting at this woman. There was profanity. There were exchanges of name calling. It was getting really tense. And then this guy shows up basically to defend this woman and engage the people who were shouting her down, and he’s giving right back at the people who were angry at this woman, and he is shouting right back at them. People now are calling him a white supremacist, and he is defiantly right in the middle of this scrum. The woman actually disappeared from my view, and this guy, who was quite large and sort of athletic-looking, was in shouting matches with multiple people before really storming away in anger. And I sort of chased him down and caught up with him.

michael crowley Can I get you for two minutes? sean bryan (ph) Yeah. michael crowley Can you tell me your name, age, and where you’re from? sean bryan (ph) Sean Bryan (ph). I’m from here. 48. michael crowley And what brought you here today to this site? sean bryan (ph) I’ve been coming by every morning. I was at the mall when the whole thing went down. I’m a United States Marine or retired Marine, and I’ve been wanting to just watch it, just take it in, not forget it. michael crowley So are you finding, when you come here, are there a lot of people arguing? sean bryan (ph) Today’s the first time I’ve seen any of that. Every day I’ve been here, it’s been nice and quiet and peaceful. Clearly, these guys thought that they could bully that girl, and they need to start caring for Americans. I don’t care if you’re Democrat, Republican, independent, black, white, yellow, polka-dotted. I don’t give a shit. If you’re an American, you’re an American. We need to all stick together, and we need to all look out for each other.

natalie kitroeff

Clearly, people are really on edge.

michael crowley

People are really on edge, and it feels like there is simmering tension. And any kind of spark, even one “Make America Great Again” hat, can light the fire.

natalie kitroeff

And when Trump arrives in El Paso in the afternoon, what happens?

michael crowley

Well, Trump had a pretty low-profile arrival here and didn’t talk to reporters. He went to the medical center here, and he met with some of the survivors and the hospital staff there. Mr. Trump then went on to a police facility, an emergency response center where reporters were allowed in. And at that point, he made his first direct comments to the press since before he left the White House this morning.

archived recording (donald trump) As you know, we left Ohio. And the love, the respect for the office of the presidency, it was — I wish you could have been in there to see it. I wish you could have been in there.

natalie kitroeff

And what did he say?

michael crowley

He claimed that the day had been a big success, that he had been received with a lot of respect in Ohio and that things had been going very well.

archived recording (donald trump) We met with numerous people. We met with also the doctors, the nurses, the medical staff. They have done an incredible job — both places, just incredible.

michael crowley

And for a moment, it seemed as though he was going to play the kind of traditional, apolitical role of a president coming to a disaster area or a place that had been struck by tragedy. But —

archived recording (donald trump) I had it with Sherrod Brown, he and the mayor, Nan Whaley.

michael crowley

This is Donald Trump, and although his aides had hoped that he would stay on a pretty tight script today, he began to lash out.

archived recording (donald trump) I turned on the television, and there they are, saying, well, I don’t know if it was appropriate for the president to be — you know, et cetera, et cetera, you know, the same old line. They’re very dishonest people, and that’s probably why he got, I think, about 0 percent, and he failed as a presidential candidate. We’re going to go in and see some very good people.

michael crowley

And he attacked Democrats who he felt had been critical of him in Ohio, including Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and also former Vice President Joe Biden, who had given a speech saying that President Trump was sort of fomenting racial hatred around the country, and he accused them of politicking on a day when he said there should not have been politics and took personal shots at them both. So that was not how things were supposed to go here today, but that is Donald Trump in the role of president of the United States.

natalie kitroeff

Michael, it, seems clear from that meeting with reporters and from your conversations in El Paso that this has not been anything like a traditional presidential visit to a city that has undergone a tragedy.

michael crowley

No, that’s absolutely right. You know, a tradition was shaped over generations in which, at times of tragedy —

archived recording (bill clinton) To the people of the community of Littleton, I can only say tonight that the prayers of the American people are with you.

michael crowley

— an American president would visit communities that were in the midst of collective grief —

archived recording (george w. bush) This is a day of mourning for the Virginia Tech community, and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation.

michael crowley

— and act as a kind of consoler, try to unite, try to heal —

archived recording (barack obama) Here in Newtown, I come to offer the love and prayers of a nation.

michael crowley

— try to reassure people with the kind of almost mystical powers of the office and the resources of the federal government, and people would hit pause on politics for a day.

archived recording (barack obama) And you must know that whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide. Whatever portion of sadness that we can share with you to ease this heavy load, we will gladly bear.

michael crowley

Donald Trump is not interested in those ceremonial functions of the presidency. He basically never hits pause on his attack politics. So we are in a very different place right now, and one question is whether we can return from it.

natalie kitroeff

And at the same time, this problem just keeps getting worse. These mass shootings are coming on the heels of mass shootings.

michael crowley

That’s right, and it’s not clear that we are closer to any kind of substantive action to address it than we were a week ago. President Trump did say this morning that he thought that there might be some action in Congress. He suggested that it could involve stricter background checks for gun sales, but he’s said things like that before and not followed through, and not much has happened. And the Republican agenda to address these shootings is very different from the Democratic one. Democrats think that we need to have sweeping new gun control measures, and Republicans are talking about mental health and even video games and the internet. It’s almost like they’re speaking different languages. So it’s hard to see any kind of solution on the horizon. And it’s terrible to say, but it just feels like the clock is ticking until the next one of these horrific events.

[music]

natalie kitroeff

Michael, thank you so much.

michael crowley

Thank you so much for having me.

michael barbaro