Donald Trump has been accused of stoking racism and hatred following two mass shootings that left 31 people dead in the US.
“There is complicity in the president’s hatred that undermines the goodness and the decency of Americans regardless of what party,” New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said.
“To say nothing in a time of rising hatred, it’s not enough to say that ‘I’m not a hate monger myself.’ If you are not actively working against hate, calling it out, you are complicit in what is going on.”
On Sunday, addressing reporters in Morristown, New Jersey, the US president said “we’re going to take care of it” after the attacks in Texas and Ohio, which happened within a few hours of each other.
Facing accusations that he has encouraged white nationalism and stoked anti-immigrant sentiment, the US president added that “hate has no place in our country”.
But Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We’ve got to acknowledge the hatred, the open racism that we’re seeing. There is an environment of it in the United States. We see it on Fox News, we see it on the internet, but we also see it from our commander in chief. He is encouraging this. He doesn’t just tolerate it, he encourages it.”
Trump said he has been speaking to the US attorney general, FBI director and members of congress and will be making an additional statement later on Monday.
He said the problem of shootings has been going on “for years and years” and “we have to get it stopped”.
Asked how he intended to handle “the gun problem” by a reporter, he said his administration had done “much more” than most and that “a lot of things are in the works, and a lot of good things”.
He added: “It’s not really not talked about very much, but we’ve done, actually, a lot. But perhaps more has to be done.”
Trump pointed to a mental illness problem in the US, calling the shooters “really very seriously mentally ill”.
A reporter asked about his many uses of the word “invasion” in describing the US-Mexico border, but he chose not to answer it.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said confronting white nationalist terrorism would be embarrassing for a president who “helped stoke many of these feelings in this country to begin with”.
“At best, he’s condoning and encouraging white nationalism,” Buttigieg said.
Senator Kamala Harris of California also found blame in Mr Trump’s use of language, which she said has “incredible consequence”.
“We have a president of the United States who has chosen to use his words in a way that have been about selling hate and division among us,” she told reporters before attending services at a black church in Las Vegas.
Senator Bernie Sanders opened a town hall meeting with a moment of silence and by calling for universal background checks for firearms purchases and more restrictions on assault weapons.
“Assault weapons are designed for one reason. They are military weapons. And I don’t have to explain that to the people in Las Vegas who experienced the worst gun tragedy in the history of this country,” Sanders said.
He urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call senators back to Washington, saying the Senate should “have a special session to address gun violence in America and let us finally have the courage to take on the NRA”.
He also criticised the president. “I say to President Trump, please stop the racist anti-immigrant rhetoric,” he said. “Stop the hatred in this country which is creating the kind of violence that we see.”.
Bernie Sanders has also warned against Trump’s rhetoric, writing on Twitter Sunday that the president has created “a climate which emboldens violent extremists” and demanding on CNN that he “stop that racism and that xenophobia immediately.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden weighed in late Sunday evening, arguing Trump “stokes the flames of hatred and coddles white supremacists with messages of support.”
On Sunday, Trump tweeted praise of law enforcement and said that “information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton” and that “much has already be learned in El Paso”.
Former Texas congressman and El Paso native Beto O’Rourke said that Trump is a white nationalist.
On Sunday evening, hundreds of people gathered to honour the nine victims killed and 27 injured in Dayton, Ohio.
The crowds released doves, repeated the names of the dead and sang Amazing Grace, but directed an angrier chorus at Republican governor Mike DeWine, interrupting his speech at the vigil with chants of “make a change” and “do something!”.
Authorities have said the shooting that killed 20 people at a crowded El Paso department store will be handled as a domestic terrorism case.
They weighed hate crime charges against the suspected gunman that could carry the death penalty.
A local prosecutor announced that he would file capital murder charges, declaring that the alleged assailant had “lost the right to be among us”.