Donald Trump made a rare appearance Sunday at a church that has traditionally served as a house of worship for sitting presidents and sat through a sermon on they type of 'hateful rhetoric' that inspired the New Zealand mosque attacks.
Trump attended a service at St. John's for the first time since his inauguration. First lady Melania Trump accompanied him to the 11 am service at the Greek Revival Episcopal church that's separated from the White House by a park.
Rev. W. Bruce McPherson identified the Friday attack on worshipers in New Zealand as 'one more gratuitous attack on innocent people at worship' in a 15-minute sermon, CNN reported.
'What can we do? Well perhaps we're called whenever we overhear or oversee hateful slurs against other people, perhaps we need the holy courage to call them out, because that's just not us,' he said.
McPherson welcomed Trump to the church in plain view on St. Patrick's Day on Sunday. The president put his hand on the small of the minister's back as he followed him in.
On the way out of the church, McPherson again walked the Trumps to their motorcade, which the couple opted to take to and from the White House.
The Trumps have attended church on several occasions since their move to Washington, usually in Florida on Christian holidas.
Trump claimed Monday, as he came under pressure to denounce white nationalism, that the media was unfairly connecting him to a mass murder who targeted two mosques in New Zealand.
The accused gunman, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, mentioned Trump in a 70-page manifesto, putting new pressure on the U.S. president to address charges that he has enabled or inspired violence with his fiery rhetoric.
'The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!' he said in his first comments since Friday on the attack.
Donald Trump claimed Monday, as he came under pressure to denounce white nationalism, that the media was unfairly connecting him to a mass murder who targeted two mosques in New Zealand
The U.S. president had previously said that he does not believe white nationalism is a growing global threat
The U.S. president had previously said that he does not believe white nationalism is a growing global threat.
His assertion Friday that the terrorist attack was the work of 'a small group' of people with 'very serious problems' came under scrutiny on Sunday from a number of Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of three Muslims in Congress.
'We need to be speaking up against this, and it has to start with him reiterating the importance of real information and data that says it's on the rise,' she said on CNN's 'State of the Union' program. 'You can't just say it isn't, when the facts say the complete opposite. He needs to do better by us and the country. He needs to speak up and condemn this very loud and very clearly.'
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a presidential candidate gunning for Trump's job, said on the same show that Trump is 'dividing' people, although she wouldn't go so far as to say he shares responsibility for the shooting.
'I don't think you can actually take each of the murderous acts and say what role Donald Trump played, but I can tell you this. His rhetoric doesn't help. And many of these people, whether it was the person who tried to bomb Barack Obama or this murderer in New Zealand, have cited Donald Trump along the way,' she said.
Trump should as a result 'be giving strong statements, public speeches defending Muslims in this world' who are under attack based on their religion.
'And one of our jobs, as a leader, is to stand up, whether people are Jewish, whether they're Muslim, no matter how they worship, no matter what they look like. We have to remember that they are all part of a country of shared dreams. And that's the United States of America,' she said.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney argued on Trump's behalf on 'Fox News Sunday' that it is 'absurd' to link Trump to the gunman.
'The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that,' he said on Fox News.
He said it's not fair to tie any of the incidents at home or abroad to the president.
'And to simply ask the question, every time something like this happens overseas, or even domestically, to say, oh, my goodness, it must somehow be the president's fault speaks to a politicization of everything that I think is undermining sort of the institutions that we have in the country today,' he added.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney snapped back at any attempt to link President Donald Trump to the accused shooter
This image was taken from the alleged shooter's video
Mulvaney said it was no more fair to call the alleged shooter a Trump supporter than to call an eco-terrorist a support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
'I don't think it's fair to cast this person as a supporter of Donald Trump any more than it is to look at his - sort of his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto that align him with Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Ocasio-Cortez,' he said.
'This was a disturbed individual, an evil person, and to try and tie him to an American politician from either party probably ignores some of the deeper, difficulties that this sort of activity exposes,' Mulvaney said.
The alleged shooter had called himself a Trump supporter, terming the president a symbol of 'white identity' while venting about an immigrant 'invasion' that he claimed was replacing white people.
Trump has himself talked about an 'invasion' of illegal immigration repeatedly.
And while he has condemned the horrific shooting in New Zealand, the president has not distanced himself from white nationalism by denouncing the movement. He claimed last year that he didn't know that the term nationalism has racial connotations and encouraged his supporters to use and embrace it.
The White House issued a bristling response to journalists on Friday morning when the first questions were raised about the sick manifesto mentioning Trump that was released by the New Zealand attacker before he began his rampage.
'It's outrageous to even make that connection between this deranged individual that committed this evil crime to the president, who had repeatedly condemned bigotry, racism, and has made it very clear that this is a terrorist attack,' fumed White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp.
'We are there to support and stand with the people of New Zealand,' Schlapp told reporters at the White House as officials continued to monitor developments from the horrific attack.
Trump had tweeted out his sympathy Friday morning for those who died 'senselessly' during the massacre at two mosques in New Zealand.
President Trump has tweeted out his sympathy for those who died 'senselessly' during the massacre at two mosques in New Zealand
However, the president made no mention of the dark sentiments that had already been unearthed about the shooter, nor did he put forth any generalized statement that acknowledged the faith of the Muslim followers who were slaughtered.
The alleged perpetrators writings state his desire to cause a 'civil war' in the U.S.
'My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques,' Trump wrote.
Trump continued: '49 innocent people have so
