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Some Skeptical as Trump Prepares to Visit Sites of Shootings

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - President Trump is bringing a message aimed at national
   unity and healing to the sites of the mass shootings in El Paso and
   Dayton. But the words he offers for a divided America will be
   complicated by his own incendiary, anti-immigrant rhetoric that mirrors
   language linked to one of the shooters.

   It is a highly unusual predicament for an American president to at once
   try to console a community and a nation at the same time he is being
   criticized as contributing to a combustible climate that can spawn
   violence.

   White House officials said Trump's visits Wednesday to Texas and Ohio,
   where 31 people were killed and dozens wounded, would be similar to
   those he's paid to grieving communities including Parkland, Florida,
   and Las Vegas, with the president and first lady saluting first
   responders and spending time with mourning families and survivors.

   "What he wants to do is go to these communities and grieve with them,
   pray with them, offer condolences,'' White House spokesman Hogan Gidley
   said Tuesday. He said Trump also wants "to have a conversation'' about
   ways to head off future deadly episodes.

   "We can do something impactful to prevent this from ever happening
   again, if we come together,'' the spokesman said.

   That's a tough assignment for a president who thrives on division and
   whose aides say he views discord and unease about cultural, economic
   and demographic changes as key to his reelection.

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