Florida shooting: Trump talks mental health, not gun control
Washington, Feb. 16: On Thursday, along with the confession of Nikolas Cruz, the teenager accused of killing 17 people at a Florida high school, came an attempt by President Donald Trump to steer the debate away from the fraught question of gun control.
Cruz, 19, said he arrived on campus and began shooting students before abandoning his weapon and escaping. He has appeared in court charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
The attack, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is the deadliest US school shooting since 2012.
And yet Mr Trump chose to act as consolerinchief to a nation despondent over the shooting of school kids with an address that aimed to assuage, but also determined not to mention gun control.
After a day and night of intense debate inside the White House, the 45th President walked into the Diplomatic Reception Room and spoke to a nation grieving “with one heavy heart.”
“We are here for you — whatever you need, whatever we can do, to ease your pain,” Mr Trump said, addressing the families shattered by the gun rampage that killed 17 children and adults.
We are committed to working with state and local leaders to tackle the issue of mental health
— Donald Trump, US Prez
On Thursday morning the President also took to Twitter to call out the “erratic” behavior of Cruz, saying neighbors should have reported him to the authorities.
The FBI has admitted it received a tip- off about him last year.
During his speech Mr Trump went one step further, promising to make the issue of mental health a priority, and to work with states and local authorities to make schools safer.
But not a word about guns. Mr Trump had agreed to make the address only reluctantly, at the urging of senior aides. The morning after the shooting, he issued a largely symbolic proclamation, ordering flags to be flown at halfstaff at government buildings, military installations and at US embassies overseas.
But in the immediate aftermath on Wednesday, Mr Trump’s absence had been conspicuous.
At almost exactly the time US authorities first confirmed the toll, in the early evening, the White House sent out a message saying the President would not appear again publicly that day.
In an unusual scene, reporters working in the usually heaving White House briefing room walked out the door toward Valentine’s Day appointments they had assumed they would miss.
In similar situations, previous Presidents have quickly, within hours, appeared in the room, eager to console or unite.
Barack Obama’s tearful appearance there after 20 elementary school children were murdered at Sandy Hook in 2012, was a seminal moment of his presidency.
Mr Trump — as ever in his ground- breaking and rulebreaking presidency — initially chose to do things differently. His only comments Wednesday were a pair of tweets offering “prayers and condolences” and saying he spoke to Florida Governor Rick Scott and was “working closely with law enforcement on the terrible Florida school shooting.” With other questions brewing about Mr Trump’s position on gun control, his alleged affair with a porn star and battery of allegations against a top aide, the White House cancelled its already delayed regular daily briefing.
Inside any White House, there is a delicate conversation about what to say after a mass shooting and how to say it. “Somehow this has become routine,” Mr Obama admitted in 2015. By the end of his presidency, he had, he said, felt tapped out, unsure what to say and how it could make a difference. “The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine.”