President Trump doesn't seem to understand the full weight of his words.
After a mass shooting left 22 people dead in El Paso, Texas, the alleged shooter's manifesto was found to contain the same word choices that Trump often uses to refer to and decry Mexican immigrants. Yet when asked by reporters Wednesday if he considers his rhetoric divisive, Trump said no, and that he thinks "my rhetoric brings people together."
Trump made the comments ahead of his Wednesday visit to El Paso and to Dayton, Ohio, where another shooting occurred over the weekend. But as many El Paso residents and the city's former Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke made clear, they don't agree with him.
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Trump went on to talk solutions for the gun violence epidemic, but said there was "no political appetite" for a ban on assault weapons. He did suggest he'd work to ramp up background checks for firearms purchases so guns don't get "into the hands of mentally unstable people or people with rage or hate, sick people." Kathryn Krawczyk
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