As Trump Visits Dayton, Protesters Gather – The New York Times

As noon approached, the crowd in the Oregon District began to thin. At one point, a few supporters of the president started chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump.” Across the street, another woman yelled, “Trump for impeachment.”

But mostly, people just stood on the sidewalk, waiting for a motorcade that did not seem likely to come. Maj. Wendy Stiver of the city police department eventually told demonstrators that the president was not going to stop by.

Trump attacks his critics on Twitter before visiting cities in mourning.

Mr. Trump began a day set aside for healing by delivering a series of political grievances against liberals and the media, once again using Twitter to exhibit the divisive language that has prompted some in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, to protest his visits after horrific shootings in those cities.

The president’s press secretary said Mr. Trump planned to honor victims, comfort families and thank emergency workers “for their heroic actions.”

That wasn’t the message that Mr. Trump wanted to deliver Wednesday morning as he ignored calls from community leaders and residents to stay away. Around midnight, he attacked Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic presidential candidate, on Twitter, mocking him for having a “phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage” and boasting that he “trounced him” when Mr. Trump held a rally in El Paso in February.

In a tweet on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump quoted a conservative television news outlet’s reporting that “the Dayton, Ohio, shooter had a history of supporting political figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and ANTIFA.”

But the president’s Twitter outbursts underscored the complaints of Mr. O’Rourke and others who have said Mr. Trump was unwelcome in their communities because his presence would inflame tensions rather than soothe them. If the president has heard those complaints, he declined to change the combative tone he has embraced since the earliest days of his presidency.