Donald Trump’s visit to Dayton, Ohio, in the wake of a mass shooting that killed nine people was kept mostly under wraps. Protesters congregated, but the fire and sheriff’s departments blocked them from being seen from Trump’s motorcade as it passed. According to White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, Donald and Melania Trump met with patients at Miami Valley Hospital, where three patients remain out of 23 who were treated.
The protesters Trump so carefully did not hear carried signs and chanted things like “Do something” and “No more hate” and—as they were blocked from view—“See us.”
Two women who survived the shooting but saw their friend, Lois Oglesby, die, spoke to CNN. Erica Kirksey said, “I wouldn't talk to the president because I don't think that he would understand what we're going through. Not only me as a person but us as a community. I just don't think that he would be able to help the situation.” But she was clear about what doing something could entail, saying, “I wish that people like that killer couldn't get ahold of assault rifles like that. it should have never been that easy for him to get that, and I know they said that his record was expunged from when he made that list, but that's something that should be a definite—you cannot get that expunged. People need to know, if you wrote a list saying that you were going to kill some people 10 years ago, 10 years later we still need to know that. Because had we known that maybe he would not have been able to get that assault rifle legally. He got it legally."
But Trump stayed carefully insulated. As he left the White House to head to Dayton, he insisted to reporters that “my rhetoric brings people together” and “I do think we have toned it down,” then went on to tie the Dayton shooter to Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, despite officials having said that politics did not appear to be a motivating factor in the mass shooting.