CNN’s Errol Louis Praises Rabbi for Believing Trump Can Be ‘Redeemed’ Even Though He ‘May Have Caused’ Tragedy

On CNN Newsroom on Tuesday, contributor Errol Louis appeared with Jim Sciutto and Poppy Harlow to discuss President Trump‘s visit to the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsbugh today, site of the horrific hate-crime massacre. Reacting to remarks by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of that synagogue, who was there during the shooting, Louis praised him for being “open” to Trump, who may have “contributed’ to the attack.

Harlow introduced the clip of Rabbi Myers being interviewed by Alisyn Camerota, during which he said that he received many complaints about Trump’s visit. “I have received many e-mails that are not happy with those words. The thing that saddens me is those e-mails also contain hate, and, it just continues in this vicious cycle. Hate promulgating more hate promulgating more hate. That’s just not the solution. We need to be better than this. We can be better than this.”

“That really struck me, Errol” said Harlow after the clip ended, prompting Louis.

“Yeah. I mean, look, that’s a man of God,” he said. “This is somebody who is going through the worst trauma of his life, who has all kinds of obligations. And yet, throughout it, he sort of clings to the core tenets of his faith, which is to be open, which is to always believe that people can be redeemed, and which is also to not close the door on anybody, even somebody who may have caused, contributed to the tragedy, the very tragedy he’s now trying to live through.”

“This is somebody in the building when all of this happened, I don’t think anybody can substitute their judgment for his in this particular situation,” Louis added. “He’s pointing to all of us the way we should all be trying to process this..”

Watch the clip above, courtesy of CNN.