The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump in Las Vegas: America in mourning
President offers solemn words about mass shooting.
LAS VEGAS — Solemn in the face of tragedy, President Donald Trump visited hospital bedsides and a vital police base in stricken Las Vegas on Wednesday, offering prayers and condolences to the victims of Sunday night’s shooting massacre, along with the nation’s thanks to first responders and doctors who rushed to save lives.
“America is truly a nation in mourning,” the president declared, days after a gunman on the 32nd floor of a hotel opened fire on the crowd at an outdoor country music festival below. The rampage killed at least 59 people and injured 527, many from gunfire, others from chaotic efforts to escape.
In Las Vegas, Trump spoke of the families who “tonight will go to bed in a world that is suddenly empty.”
“Our souls are stricken with grief for every American who lost a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a son or a daughter,” he told them. “We know that your sorrow feels endless. We stand together to help you carry your pain. “
It was a somber address from a provocateur president who prides himself on commanding strength but sometimes has struggled to project empathy.
His solemn words in Las Vegas offered a sharp contrast to his trip a day earlier to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, where he spoke of the “expensive” recovery effort and highlighted the relatively low death toll there compared with “a real catastrophe
like Katrina” in 2005.
On Wednesday, Trump took a grim tour of Las Vegas, meeting face-to-face with victims and first responders.
In prepared remarks, he spoke of the courage displayed by those who risked or lost their lives saving loved ones and total strangers. He described an eyewitness account of police officers standing as bullets slammed around them and trying to direct concert-goers to safety.
He described a military veteran who had rushed to the scene in search of loved ones, but quickly turned to helping victims, using plastic barriers as gurneys and frantically searching for anything to use to make splints.
“The example of those whose final act was to sacrifice themselves for those they love should inspire all of us to show more love every day for the people who grace our lives,” Trump said.
The president spent about four hours in a city still reeling from the worst mass shooting in modern American history. His first stop was the University Medical Center, where he spent 90 minutes meeting with victims,
their families and medical professionals. Trump said he’d met “some of the most amazing people,” including some who’d been “very, very badly wounded” because they’d refused to flee.
Trump said he’d invited some of those that he’d met to visit the White House if they’re ever in Washington.
Generous with superlatives, Trump also commended the doctors for doing an “indescribable” job.
Trump then headed to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police headquarters, where he met with officers, dispatchers and others who’d responded to the shooting Sunday night.
“You showed the world, and the world is watching,” he told them, “and you showed what professionalism is all about.”
Until his final remarks, Trump focused his comments on praising recovery efforts and offering congratulations to police, medical professionals and survivors, rather than on grieving the dead. At the last stop, however, he spoke slowly and somberly of the lives ended or forever altered.