Pittsburgh Mayor's "jarring three-minute phone call" with Trump

[Miles Archer]

The three-minute phone call with the president jarred Peduto, 54, the popular second-term Democratic mayor of the Steel City, just as he was trying to get his head around what was happening. After offering thoughts and prayers — and pledging anything Peduto needed, including a direct line to the White House — Trump veered directly into policy, Peduto recalled. The president, Peduto said, insisted on discussing harsher death penalty legislation as a way to prevent such atrocities. Peduto was stunned into silence.

“I’m literally standing two blocks from 11 bodies right now. Really?” Peduto said, noting that he was numb and believed that talking about the death penalty wasn’t “going to bring them back or deter what had just happened. . . . I ended the conversation pretty quickly after that.”

White House spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment about Trump’s call to Peduto. The president said after the shooting that armed guards might have been able to stop the shooter and prevent the massacre, and he said at a campaign rally hours after the shooting that “we have to bring back the death penalty” for those who kill innocent people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/pittsburgh-mayor-bill-peduto-leads-his-city-through-its-darkest-days/2018/11/04/958563b8-deb9-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html

[dawg day]

1. Pennsylvania has the death penalty-

And it didn't prevent the mass shooting or bring back the dead.

Trump's utter lack of empathy or even politesse is really striking. Three minutes and he can't keep from being "jarring"?

Thank goodness he didn't get into the funerals. Imagine what his "eulogy" would be like.

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. Florida and Texas too n/t

[Blue_true]

14. Nevada also, I think.

It has long been shown that people that do the most heinous crimes don't think about the death penalty, it is not a factor in their thinking as they plan the crimes.

[TexasBushwhacker]

22. Indeed. Many end up killing themselves

or being killed, ala "suicide by cop", so the death penalty is hardly a deterrent. It's not a deterrent in "crimes of passion" because those crimes were not planned in advance. It's not a deterrent for murders in the drug world or organized crime, because those killers generally belong to the "live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse" club. If the death penalty was a deterrent, states that have it would have lower rates of violent crime. They don't.

[lisby]

11. Trump's eulogy

would be about how he has personally suffered more than anyone else by the massacre. Nobody has suffered more. Nobody.

So do we now need a double death penalty in PA? If you get it they bring you back from the dead and do it again?

[dawg day]

29. HE would also probably brag about how HIS massacre was the best ever.

[meow2u3]

12. Gov. Wolf put a moratorium on the death penalty

He cited injustices in meting out the death penalty, such as disproportionate targeting of poor people and POC.

Right now, capital punishment is de facto abolished, at least temporarily.

[Neema]

33. I think jarring is about the best anyone

can expect. Infuriating, insulting, disgusting, appalling, tone-deaf, narcissistic, and utterly clueless are far more common.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Is this what they mean when they say that you shouldn't politicize a gun shooting?

At least, that what they say when you bring up gun control.

[spanone]

3. After 11 deaths, trump can only offer more death.

he's no fucking president.

[bdamomma]

4. tRump

always has a way of escalating situations like this when people perish under his hand, instead of de-escalating he is escalating the situation for example Parkland shooting more guns should be allowed and carried by teachers. And those 11 souls who were worshiping in their synagogue should have an armed guard, WTF tRump believes in a police state. I hate the fucking man.

[spanone]

5. You & me both bdamomma

[dlk]

7. Trump Has Sadistic Tendencies-Like Many Cowards

[MineralMan]

8. Trump is completely unable to empathize with anything.

His one-track mind cannot relate to anyone else's emotions. If something is not about him, he will attempt to make it about him.

[NoMoreRepugs]

9. What else would anyone expect from a Moron?

A thoughtful, well reasoned response or dumbfuckery?

[MagickMuffin]

10. Bring back the Death Penalty

I wasn't aware it went anywhere. I thought it was still in use.

[watoos]

16. No he didn't.

[watoos]

15. They did studies back in the 1930's

that showed that the death penalty does nothing to deter murders.

The fact that 1 innocent person may be put to death unjustly is 1 too many for me. It should be abolished if people claim to be pro life, too.

[flibbitygiblets]

20. Pro fetus, not pro life

We should rebrand them thusly

[samnsara]

24. pro WHITE fetus i think...

[George II]

17. It's been proven over decades that the death penalty does not deter murder. In fact...

...murder rates in death penalty states have been higher than non-death penalty states for years.

[NewJeffCT]

30. you're correct

I remember having to do a group presentation on the Death Penalty in a college class back in the dark ages of the late 80s and it was true back then and it's still true today.

(By the way, the group was 5 people, 3 against the death penalty (including me) at the start of the project and 2 for it at the start of the project. But, at the end, it was all 5 of us against it)

[47of74]

18. The Orange Shitgibbon is a fucking idiot.

[spanone]

19. hey don, the death penalty occasionally kills innocent people....

YOU would have killed the central park five....five innocent people

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york

[flibbitygiblets]

21. [phone]

[samnsara]

23. wash state just ended their death penalty...

..just a few years ago our method was still by hanging (or a choice of injection with a questionable substance)

[FakeNoose]

25. Cheeto is shilling for the NRA now

I'm glad Mayor Peduto didn't take the bait and argue capital punishment on the phone. It was completely inappropriate for a President to make a comment like that, and our Mayor has much more class. Cheeto cannot empathize with anyone else and he has no manners.

[SWBTATTReg]

26. Smart mayor. The NRA controlled republicans and rump can only offer us thoughts and prayers...nt

[PatrickforO]

27. Trump has no moral compass and is utterly

incapable of compassion or empathy.

He only cares about himself, yet his fear and hate mongering indirectly caused this and other tragedies of domestic terror.

[BootinUp]

28. The mayor should have brought up impeachment, lol. No

He handled it well.

[Yavin4]

31. Maybe we can execute them. Revive them. And then execute them again.

Just like that Black Mirror episode.

[Blue Owl]

32. Demented Donny "Douchebag" Deathmonger

What a freaking miserable excuse for a human being Donny is.

[peggysue2]

34. This underscores that the Trumpster is not only . . .

ignorant but incapable of compassion and empathy. He doesn't have a humane bone in his body. It's always about him and/or how he can play a situation to his advantage.

The man is bankrupt in the decency department. It's staggering how shallow he is as a human being, how bereft he is in the fundamentals of basic human interaction. Eleven bodies ripped to pieces and he's trying to play the political angle.

Oy!