--- title: El Paso Mayor Says Trump Called Him a RINO During Visit to Shooting Victims description: El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said Donald Trump criticized him during the President's visit to the Texas city in the wake of the mass shooting. canonical: https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/ author: Billy Perrigo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-08-16T16:53:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:52.751Z article:section: Politics og:title: El Paso Mayor Says Trump Called Him a RINO During Visit to Comfort Shooting Victims og:description: RINO––Republican in Name Only––has become a derisive term for Trump supporters og:url: https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28d0b44d7b548c7f/698a0184011682576097e11d/trump-el-paso-mayor.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-CRIME-SHOOTING-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: El Paso Mayor Says Trump Called Him a RINO During Visit to Comfort Shooting Victims twitter:description: RINO––Republican in Name Only––has become a derisive term for Trump supporters twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28d0b44d7b548c7f/698a0184011682576097e11d/trump-el-paso-mayor.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # El Paso Mayor Says President Trump Called Him a RINO During Visit to Comfort Shooting Victims > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: As Trump Visits El Paso to Sell His Wall, The Mayor Refutes Trump's False Claims About The City [Watch (HLS stream): As Trump Visits El Paso to Sell His Wall, The Mayor Refutes Trump's False Claims About The City](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/B8MLhMA4.m3u8) (0:51)  _Published 2019-02-11. Trump is visiting El Paso on Monday for his first rally of 2019 – as he continues to try to rally support for the wall_  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Aug 16, 2019 4:53 PM UTC  El Paso Mayor Dee Margo greets President Donald Trump at El Paso International Airport on August 7, 2019. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo greets President Donald Trump at El Paso International Airport on August 7, 2019.SAUL LOEB—AFP/Getty Images  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Aug 16, 2019 4:53 PM UTC El Paso’s Republican mayor said Donald Trump criticized him during the President’s visit to the Texas city last week in the wake of the [mass shooting](https://time.com/5643420/victims-el-paso-shooting/) that killed 22 people. Mayor Dee Margo said he told Trump he was spreading “misinformation” about crime in the border town. Margo made the comments to [PBS’s _Frontline_](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/in-private-meeting-trump-calls-el-paso-mayor-a-rino/) in an interview published Wednesday, exactly a week after he met with the President. Trump responded with a political attack. “He said, ‘You’re a RINO’ and I said, ‘No, sir. I am not a RINO,’” Margo said. RINO –– Republican in Name Only –– has long been a term associated with liberal Republicans, but lately it has also become a derisive term that many Trump supporters use to describe Republicans who criticize or refuse to support the President. Margo continued, “I said, ‘I simply corrected the misinformation you were given by \[the Texas\] Attorney General. That’s all I did … He just kinda grinned.” The “misinformation” Margo is referring to was the false claim made by [Trump in his February State of the Union address](https://time.com/5522904/donald-trump-el-paso-wall/) that El Paso’s crime rate was one of the highest in the U.S. until a barrier fence was erected in 2009. Margo said the border fence had no “direct impact” on El Paso’s overall crime rate. “We are one of the safest cities in the country, but we have been before the fence went up,” he told _Frontline_. There were just [19](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-8/table-8-state-cuts/texas.xls) murders or non-negligent manslaughters known to law enforcement in El Paso in 2017, according to the FBI. In Washington D.C., which has a similar population, there were [116](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-8/table-8-state-cuts/district-of-columbia.xls). Trump’s language on migration and violent crime has been linked by many in civil society to the El Paso shooting, which was carried out by an [alleged white supremacist](https://time.com/5648920/el-paso-shooting-confessed/) who wrote of an “invasion” of Hispanic people. “The President’s open racism is an invitation to violence,” the former El Paso Congressman and 2020 Presidential candidate [Beto O’Rourke](https://time.com/5649332/beto-orourke-el-paso-shooting/) said after the shooting. “The writing has been on the wall since his maiden speech coming down the escalator calling immigrants ‘rapists and criminals’.” “The action that follows cannot surprise us.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/"},"headline":"El Paso Mayor Says President Trump Called Him a RINO During Visit to Comfort Shooting Victims","datePublished":"2019-08-16T16:53:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:03:52.751Z","description":"RINO––Republican in Name Only––has become a derisive term for Trump supporters","url":"https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/","keywords":["Donald Trump","Texas","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28d0b44d7b548c7f/698a0184011682576097e11d/trump-el-paso-mayor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Billy Perrigo","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28d0b44d7b548c7f/698a0184011682576097e11d/trump-el-paso-mayor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-CRIME-SHOOTING-TRUMP","caption":"US-POLITICS-CRIME-SHOOTING-TRUMP","creditText":"SAUL LOEB—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/","name":"El Paso Mayor Says President Trump Called Him a RINO During Visit to Comfort Shooting Victims"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"As Trump Visits El Paso to Sell His Wall, The Mayor Refutes Trump's False Claims About The City","description":"Trump is visiting El Paso on Monday for his first rally of 2019 – as he continues to try to rally support for the wall","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/B8MLhMA4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-02-11T17:32:27.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/B8MLhMA4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/","duration":"PT51S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5653918/trump-attack-el-paso-mayor/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```