After deadly attacks like Tuesday's rampage in Lower Manhattan, elected leaders typically try to show unity, even those from different parties. But not this time, and not with this president: President Trump said Wednesday that Sen. Charles Schumer bears some responsibility for the mayhem. In turn, the senator, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted Trump. Our Josh Robin filed the following report.
Not long ago, President Trump hinted of an immigration deal with the hometown senator he called Chuck.
Wednesday, he all but said Charles Schumer has blood on his hands. "The terrorist came into our country through what is called the 'Diversity Visa Lottery Program,' a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based," Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.
"We will take all necessary steps to protect our people and our communities, and to protect our nation as a whole," Trump said Wednesday. "We have to get much tougher, we have to get much smarter and we have to get much less politically correct. We're so politically correct that we're afraid to do anything."
"President Trump, where is your leadership?" Schumer said at the floor of the Senate floor Wednesday. "The contrast between President Bush's actions after 9/11 and President Trump's actions this morning could not be starker. President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be bringing us together."
The Democrat counters Trump's cuts in security funds are jeopardizing safety.
Schumer punctuated that point with his own tweet. Fellow Democrats backed him up.
"You play into the hands of the terrorists to the extent you disrupt and divide and frighten people in this society," Cuomo said about Trump.
"This should be a unity moment, where the focus is on solving the crime and figuring out how we can move forward together, not the pointing of fingers," de Blasio said.
Trump's get-tough stance on immigration helped get him elected. But there is more nuance to the law. It overwhelmingly passed the Senate in 1990. When President George H.W. Bush signed it, Schumer's diversity system had been folded in to a measure with broad support.
"Immigration is not just a link to American's past; it's also a bridge to America's future," Bush said.
Many other Republicans voted aye, including Trump's now-director of national intelligence.
23 years later, Schumer and Republicans proposed a new immigration system emphasizing entry based on merit, which is exactly what the president wants. But it failed in the House of Representatives.
Wednesday ended with some degree of bipartisanship: after about 24 hours, Trump called Cuomo and de Blasio. He said the federal government "fully supports any and all of their efforts with respect to the West Side attack."