President Trump is addressing a political rally in Illinois Saturday hours after a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday morning. He said he would continue with the events on his schedule Saturday because “we can’t let evil change our life and change our schedule.”
At his first event, a speech to the Future Farmers of America, in Indianapolis, the president said he had considered canceling his appearance at a political rally Saturday evening in Illinois after the shooting, which he condemned as a “wicked act of mass murder” that was “pure evil and frankly unimaginable.”
“At first, I was thinking I’ll cancel, and then I said, ‘You know, we can’t let evil change our life and change our schedule.’ We can’t do that. We have to go and do whatever we were going to do,” he said to applause. “Otherwise we given them too much credit. We make them too important and you go with a heavy heart, but you — you go. You don’t want to change your life. You can’t make them important.”
Republican Rep. Mike Bost is hoping his re-election bid gets a boost from president’s airport rally on his behalf. Bost is in a tight race against Democrat Brendan Kelly, the St. Clair County state’s attorney. The 12th Congressional District is one of four GOP-held seats that Democrats are targeting as they try to take control of the House. Voters in this once reliably Democratic district heavily supported Mr. Trump in 2016, 55 percent to 40 percent, and CBS News rates this race lean Republican.
Less than two weeks before elections for control of Congress, the shooting followed a tense week dominated by a mail bomb plot with apparent political motivations and served as another toxic reminder of a divided nation.
“A lot of people killed,” Trump said upon his arrival in Indiana. “A lot of people very badly wounded.” He said the attack “looks definitely like it’s an anti-Semitic crime” and “there must be no tolerance for anti-Semitism in America.” Mr. Trump also said in Indiana that lawmakers “should very much bring the death penalty into vogue” and people who kill in places such as synagogues and churches “really should suffer the ultimate price.”
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