Much of the conversation surrounding Saturday's deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue has examined the question of whether and how President Trump's rhetoric encourages extremism. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley thinks that's not fair.
In a Monday night tweet, she argued that just as then-President Barack Obama was not blamed for a white supremacist's murderous attack on a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, so Trump should not be linked to what happened in Pittsburgh:
Trump himself made a similar claim Monday about Cesar Sayoc, the man accused of mailing pipe bombs to prominent Democratic and media figures last week. Sayoc is an avid Trump supporter — his van is plastered with pro-Trump stickers — but Trump believes reporting that fact is unfair.
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"I was in the headline of The Washington Post, my name associated with this crazy bomber," he said. "They didn't do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church — they didn't do that."
Three things here: First, Obama wasn't linked to the shooting in Charleston in this manner because the racist shooter was not a devoted supporter of the country's first black president. Second, Obama was criticized by some on the right for allegedly exacerbating race relations with his response to Charleston. And third, Haley herself, then governor of South Carolina, laid blame for Charleston on Trump's rhetoric. "I know what that rhetoric can do," she said. "I saw it happen."
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