Nikki Haley compares Pittsburgh response to Charleston: ‘We didn’t once blame Pres. Obama’

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley slammed those blaming President Trump’s rhetoric for Saturday’s shooting at a Pittsburgh-area synagogue, saying such blame was not placed at then-President Obama’s feet after a shooter opened fire at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., during his administration.

“I have struggled [with] what happened in Pitts [because] it’s so similar to what happened in Chas. The country was very racially divided @ the time,” Haley tweeted Tuesday morning. “We didn’t once blame Pres. Obama. We focused solely on the lives lost & their families. Have some respect for these families & stop the blame,” Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina before taking the role at the U.N., tweeted Monday night.

I have struggled w/ what happened in Pitts bc it’s so similar to what happened in Chas. The country was very racially divided @ the time. We didn’t once blame Pres. Obama. We focused solely on the lives lost & their families. Have some respect for these families & stop the blame.

— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) October 30, 2018

Critics of Trump have alleged that the president’s rhetoric has led to a heated political environment that saw explosive devices sent to prominent Democrats, former security officials and CNN last week, as well as Saturday’s shooting at a synagogue that left 11 dead.

{mosads}“Time and time again, the president has condoned physical violence and divided Americans with his words and his actions,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week in a joint statement about the explosive devices.

“Expressing support for the congressman who body-slammed a reporter, the neo-Nazis who killed a young woman in Charlottesville, his supporters at rallies who get violent with protesters, dictators around the world who murder their own citizens, and referring to the free press as the enemy of the people,” they added.

The White House has condemned both the mailed explosive devices and the Pittsburgh shooting while denying any culpability.

“I think it’s irresponsible to blame the president and members of his administration for those heinous acts,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing Monday.

The alleged Pittsburgh gunman reportedly yelled anti-Semitic slurs before firing upon members attending services at the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday.  

Trump has had to distance himself from anti-Semites before, particularly after appearing reluctant to condemn neo-Nazis at the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year and posting a since-deleted tweet during his presidential campaign calling Hillary Clinton the “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” with words transposed over a red Star of David and a pile of money.

The 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston by an avowed white supremacist left nine dead. Critics on the right claimed throughout Obama’s presidency that he stoked racial divisions, often citing his claims that there was racial discrimination in the justice system.

Updated at 9:50 a.m.