President Donald Trump took issue with media coverage of protests during his visit Tuesday to the Pittsburgh synagogue Tree of Life, which suffered a recent mass shooting, in a Wednesday tweet.
Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful! pic.twitter.com/9B9HgCF1G9
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018
Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
Trump visited the site of the synagogue massacre Tuesday where assailant Robert Bowers gunned down 11 worshippers Saturday during a Jewish service. News coverage of the event highlighted the presence of several dozen peaceful protestors surrounding the event who objected to the president’s often barbed rhetoric.
Trump was shunned by the mayor of Pittsburgh and governor of Pennsylvania during his visit along with one of the families of the victims of the shooting. Some large scale protests also took place in the city of Pittsburgh with citizens saying the president was to blame for heightened political tension in the U.S.
Trump was not universally shunned, however, with the Rabbi of the synagogue, which was targeted by Bowers, appearing with him publicly and saying he is welcome at the place of worship ahead of the visit.
The president also spent nearly an hour with the widow of one of the victims. “She said that she wanted to be there in order to show him that people wanted him there. He spent a good bit of time with her and said he was very humbled and very saddened by the experience that he had yesterday in Pittsburgh,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of their conversation together.