President Trump on Monday said there was no reason for him to cancel or postpone his Saturday night rally in Indiana, which took place hours after the deadly mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Speaking to Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Trump first defended playing the Pharrell Williams song "Happy," saying, "Rallies are meant to be fun." He doesn't believe in calling off events when tragedies occur, and stood by his decision to go to Indiana. "Frankly, I think that's the way it should be," he said. "You can't let these people disrupt more than they already have. They are disgraceful."
The president and first lady Melania Trump are expected to travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, and Trump said he will "pay my respects and going to the hospital to see the officers and some of the people who were so badly hurt." He also discussed Cesar Sayoc, the man charged with sending explosives to prominent Democrats and Trump critics, saying he "was insane a long time before this." As for the migrant caravan that is still about 1,000 miles away from the southern border, Trump said the people — many of them fleeing poverty and violence in Central America — are "wasting their time" and "not getting in." Those who arrive in the U.S., he added, will be greeted by "tents, they're going to be very nice and they're going to wait, and if they don't get asylum, they get out."