Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host.

The dual shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, this weekend marked a uniquely American — and sadly frequent — milestone in our public life, with the number of mass shootings outpacing the number of days in 2019.

But the public conversation that followed turned an uncomfortably familiar event into a decidedly different moment: A fierce political confrontation about hate, extremists and the rise of white nationalism.

When asked by CNN whether he believed President Donald Trump was a white nationalist, former Representative Beto O’Rourke didn’t pause: “Yes, I do,” he said.

Other Democratic presidential candidates have also spoken out: “The white nationalists think he’s a white nationalist,” said Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio.