| The midterm elections take place in eight days and candidates are making their closing arguments to voters amid a backdrop of terror threats and racial violence that has stunned the nation and ignited debate in Washington over who is to blame. President Trump expressed horror over the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue this weekend that left 11 people dead. The massacre came a day after authorities arrested the man suspected of mailing pipe bombs to top Democrats. The president described the “hate in our country” as a “terrible, terrible thing” and said the death penalty would be fitting for the alleged Squirrel Hill shooter, who was apparently driven by hatred of Jews and refugees. But Trump also said he would not scale back his aggressive and hostile tone toward his political enemies or the press, amid worries from lawmakers that the toxic political culture in Washington has spun out of control. “I’d have a much different tone frankly if the press was evenhanded. If the press was fair, I’d have a much different tone all the time. But I’m fighting the media, I’m fighting - the media is not being honest and I’m fighting that lack of honesty so I have to have that tone. Otherwise I’ll never get my points across, we’ll never get what we have to get across, and we are making America great again.” – Trump The New York Times: For Trump, dutiful words of grief, then off to the next fight. The Associated Press: Politics presses on amid election-season tragedy. Critics in both parties are pointing fingers at the president, alleging that he’s set a permissive tone by flirting with fringe elements, stirring up racial animus and employing bare-knuckles rhetoric aimed at dividing, rather than uniting. They want the occupant of the Oval Office to set a better example. Former Vice President Joe Biden accused the president of giving hatred “a safe harbor,” pointing to Trump’s remarks after the deadly Charlottesville, Va., protests as an example of his permissive attitude toward bigotry and violence. “Hate is on the march in America. And when hatred is given a safe harbor – when it’s given space to fester – when it brazenly puts itself on display in a historic American city – when its distorted world view is fueled uninterrupted in forum after forum on the web – when it hears an American political leadership say good people can be found among those spewing this ugly bile - it grows.” – Biden Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump’s expression of regret over the massacre at the synagogue “rings hollow.” “The person with the biggest bully pulpit right now is the president of the United States, for better or worse. And it's mostly for worse. And the way that he continues to divide us, the way that really his whole political strategy is about division, creates a toxic climate, a climate that is just sulfurous … you cannot preach division 365 days a year, you can't stoke people's animus towards the other, you can't vilify people coming to the country as murderers and rapists, and then, on the day tragedy strikes, sound a different note.” – Schiff And Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) was among those urging the president to reconsider his tone. "I think the president needs to be more clear in his rhetoric, and doesn't need to be as caustic in his rhetoric." – Lankford on CBS’s “Face the Nation” The White House is rejecting the connection between Trump’s rhetoric and the recent spate of threats and violence. “Everyone has their own style, and frankly, people on both sides of the aisle use strong language about our political differences. But I just don’t think you can connect it to acts or threats of violence … The president and I have different styles, but the president connected to the American people because he spoke plainly.” – Vice President Pence Of course, the heated rhetoric, threats of violence and political attacks are not confined to one party. Trump and his family receive daily threats and the shooter who nearly killed House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) last year was a liberal activist. There is no direct connection between the shooting suspect in Pittsburgh and the president or right-wing politics. Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) said on Sunday that some in his party, such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who has encouraged protesters to confront Republicans in public, go too far. "I think it's important that people who are in leadership nationally, who are well known, discourage that kind of aggressive advocacy." – Coons on CBS’s “Face the Nation” The Hill: Lawmakers seek to quell partisan tensions after week of violence. The Hill: Dem, GOP campaign chiefs call for week of unity. Between now and Election Day, the president will campaign to energize conservative voters. His words at each rally and during a possible trip to Pittsburgh will be studied closely as Americans grapple with two inexplicable attacks, one based on religious hatred and the other apparently inspired by a virulent strain of partisanship. Perspectives and Analyses Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Editorial Board): On good and evil. Dan Balz: Trump at the center of the storm. The Associated Press: Fed-up Americans crave unity amid violence. Jim Rutenberg: Trump’s attacks on the news media are working. Bari Weiss: A massacre in the heart of Mr. Rogers’s neighborhood. Jason Sattler: The tide of hate and the man in the White House. David Harsanyi: The left’s response to the mass shooting of Jews an act of bad faith. Howard Fineman: The hatred of “the other” is poisoning our public life. Joe Battenfeld: Blaming Trump and GOP could backfire on Dems. Maureen Dowd: ‘Riling up the crazies’ Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper: Words alone won’t stop hatred and deaths. 
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