Protesters greeted President Trump’s arrival in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday, blaming his incendiary rhetoric for inflaming political and racial tensions in the country, as he visited survivors of last weekend’s mass shootings and saluted first responders.

He was expected to be greeted by similar protests on his visit later Wednesday in El Paso, Texas, where a gunman opened fired Saturday in a crowded Walmart in this usually peaceful city on the Mexico border.

His visits follow a shattering weekend in which mass shootings just hours apart left 31 dead and injured dozens. It also put President Trump at the center of a storm of outrage over racism and the failure to tighten the nation’s gun laws.

Even as the president said Monday that “hate has no place in our country” and blamed the shootings on mental illness, in- vestigators in El Paso confirmed that the massacre Saturday morning at the Walmart that left 22 people dead and 25 others wounded had been preceded by the 21-year-old gunman publishing an anti-immigrant screed on the internet.

Just 13 hours later in the early hours of Sunday, a 24-year-old gunman in Dayton, wearing body armor and carrying 100- bullet magazines to arm his high-powered rifle, killed nine and wounded 14 people outside a club in Dayton’s popular Oregon District.

Police warned that he could have killed dozens more people if he had not been shot by police within 30 seconds of opening fire.

The shootings come on the heels of the July 28 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California, in which a 19-year-old gunman armed with a high-caliber rifle, opened fire, killing three people and wounding 15 others. He had posted neo-Nazi ideas on social media.

Critics around the country, including Democrats running to become the party’s presidential nominee to take on President Trump in November 2020, pointed to the president’s increasingly racist attacks on migrants at the border and on members of color in Congress as fanning the flames of violence perpetrated by white nationalists, members of hate groups and racist individuals in the United States.

The president and First Lady Melania Trump began their visit to Dayton on Wednesday at Miami Valley Hospital, where many of the victims of Sunday’s attack were treated. At least 200 protesters gathered outside the hospital, where they set up a “baby Trump” blimp balloon and held signs stating, “Do something,” “Save our city” and “You are why.” Many hoped to send a message to the president that they want action on gun control. Some said he was not welcome in their city.

There were Trump supporters, as well.

Reporters traveling with the president were kept out of view as he talked with survivors, first responders and staff at the hospital. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted that the couple had “been stopping between rooms to thank the hardworking medical staff. Very powerful moments for all!”

Speaking after the president’s visit, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, called for action on gun reform. Calling for bipartisan support for change, Sen. Brown said the president and the GOP are “in bed with the gun lobby.”

Mayor Whaley said earlier Wednesday that she was disappointed with the president’s scripted remarks Monday responding to the shootings. His speech included a denunciation of “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” and a declaration that “hate has no place in America.” But he didn’t mention in those remarks any new efforts to limit sales of certain guns or support for universal background checks before all gun purchases.

However, on Wednesday, the president said he was “all in favor” of universal background checks, a statement he reneiged on following the Valentine’s Day massacre at a Parkland, Fla., high school in February 2018.

In a blistering speech in Iowa on Wednesday, former Vice President Joe Biden, accused President Trump of having “fanned the flames of white supremacy,” while U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, speaking at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, S.C., where an avowed white supremacist shot and killed nine people during Bible study in 2015, blamed the president for sowing similar hatred.

Both Mr. Biden and Sen. Booker are seeking the Democratic nod for president in 2020.

But in El Paso, where more protests were expected with the president’s visit late Wednesday afternoon, Raul Melendez, whose father-in-law, David Johnson, was killed in Saturday’s shooting, said the most appropriate thing President Trump could do was to meet with relatives of the victims.

“It shows that he actually cares if he talks to individual families,” said Mr. Melendez, who credits Mr. Johnson with helping his 9-year-old daughter survive the attack by pushing her under a counter. Mr. Melendez, an Army veteran and the son of Mexican immigrants, said he holds only the shooter responsible for the attack.

“That person had the intent to hurt people, he already had it,” he said. “No one’s words would have triggered that.”

Former President Barack Obama took to social media on Monday to criticize racist rhetoric spouted by public officials. Without calling President Trump by name, he wrote, “We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments.”

President Trump isn’t the only one in the spotlight following the shootings. Public outcry is growing against Walmart’s continued sale of firearms in its stores. The retail giant, one of the largest outlet for gun sales in the nation, previously removed military-style, semiautomatic assault rifles from their stores in 2015 and raised the age for gun purchases from 18 to 21 in 2018.