Trump on toning down his rhetoric: ‘You should go about your life’

President Trump on Monday said “you should go about your life” when asked whether he would tone down his rhetoric in the wake of a violent week that included pipe bombs mailed to Democrats and a mass shooting at a synagogue.

Trump sat down with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday and said he didn’t want to make the suspects behind the violence “too important” by cancelling events.

The president was criticized for going to a scheduled campaign rally in Illinois hours after 11 people were killed when a gunman opened fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

“Once you start doing that, once you cancel — so you’re doing a rally and rallies are meant to be fun,” Trump told Ingraham on Monday. “Rallies are meant to be everything and I said, ‘Tone it down,’ and then you saw the group saying, ‘No, don’t tone it down, don’t tone it down.’”

Trump at the rally in Illinois told the crowd: “If you don’t mind, I’m going to tone it down, just a little bit. Is that okay?”

After the crowd responded with a ‘No,” he said, “I had a feeling you might say that.”

“So we had a great rally in Illinois, for some great people and frankly, I think that’s probably the way it should be,” Trump told Ingraham.

The president has rejected calls to temper his political rhetoric in the aftermath of the nationwide bomb scare involving many prominent Democrats. The figures targeted with mailed bombs were all critics of Trump who has has criticized in return.

“I think I’ve been toned down, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters on Friday.

“I could really tone it up because, as you know, the media’s been extremely unfair to me and to the Republican Party,” Trump said.

His comments came after the arrest of Cesar Sayoc Jr., a reported Trump fan who was charged with five federal crimes for allegedly mailing explosive devices to more than a dozen Democrats, celebrities and news organizations.

[The Hill]