For months, Republican officials have complained privately that President Trump lacks the ability to confront moments of crisis with moral clarity, choosing to inflame the divisions that have torn the country apart rather than try to bring it together. It took the importuning of his Jewish daughter and son-in-law to craft a powerful statement of outrage at anti-Semitism after Saturday’s slaughter at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Then Mr. Trump went back into partisan mode, assailing his enemies. By the evening’s end he was tweeting about baseball, and on Sunday he went after another foe.
Eleven Jews are slaughtered by an anti-Semitic maniac in a synagogue and Trump had to be “importuned” by his daughter to issue a strong statement denouncing it. Normally I might think this is just another example of Ivanka and Jared touting their influence to the press, but this kind of thing doesn’t make anyone look good. So it’s probably true. Unbelievable, but true.
As for why Trump had to be talked into this, that’s simple. Trump believes himself to be the president not of the whole country, but only of those who voted for him. The Jewish community didn’t, so he doesn’t care about them.
