Late update: Brown tweeted on Wednesday that he plans to meet with Trump in Dayton after all.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said on Tuesday that he won’t meet with President Donald Trump during his visit to Dayton, Ohio on Wednesday due to Trump’s “racist rhetoric” and “total unwillingness” to address gun control.
“I will not be there with him,” Brown told SiriusXM radio host Joe Madison on “The Joe Madison Show.”
“I don’t have any interest because of what he’s done on this, total unwillingness to address the issue of guns, his racist rhetoric,” the Democratic senator continued. “I don’t know what he’s going to say and do there. I mean I welcome him to the state in some sense, but not about this.”
Brown said he hopes Trump apologizes for “his racist rhetoric and his divisive tones.”
Trump plans to visit both Dayton and El Paso, Texas on Wednesday after both cities experienced mass shootings over the weekend that killed a total of 31 people.
During his press conference responding to the shootings, Trump leaned on the now-predictable Republican talking point about gun violence: that mental illness is to blame for the massacres, not guns.
“Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun,” Trump said.
Listen to Brown’s comments below:
