President meets with families after shooting
HOUSTON — President Trump spent more than an hour Thursday offering private condolences to some of the families affected by this month’s deadly Texas school shooting, the latest spasm of mass violence in a year marred by assaults on the nation’s schools.
While Trump was in Texas, his newly formed school safety commission met outside Washington, part of the president’s chosen solution to combat the rising tide of bloodshed after his brief flirtation with tougher gun laws went nowhere.
A White House spokesman said Trump was “moved” by the May 18 shooting at Santa Fe High School, which left eight students and two substitute teachers dead. A student faces capital murder charges in the attack.
“These events are very tragic, whenever they happen. And you know, the president wants to extend his condolences and talk about the issue of school safety,” spokesman Raj Shah told Fox News Channel.
Trump, who at times has awkwardly embraced his role as the national comforter-in-chief, did not publicly share what he told the grieving families and local leaders during a meeting at a Coast Guard base outside Houston. Reporters were not permitted to witness the meeting, and the White House did not immediately identify the people with whom Trump met or what they discussed.
“He’s the president of the United States, but he’s also a father. He’s also a husband, and he obviously understands what it’s like, you know, to love someone and then lose someone,” Shah said in the interview, adding that Trump approaches situations like these as a human being and a parent, not necessarily as a politician.
“I think he just, you know, he talks to families, he listens and he wants to learn,” Shah said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, both Republicans, greeted Trump on the tarmac after he stepped off Air Force One at a Houston military base. Abbott joined Trump for the short ride in the presidential limousine to a Coast Guard hangar where the meeting took place.
Trump then headed to a fundraiser at a luxury hotel in downtown Houston, the first of his two big-dollar events across Texas on Thursday. A White House official did not immediately respond to requests for details about how much money was to be raised, and who was benefiting, from the fundraising events.