President Donald Trump held a cue card between his hands that reminded him to offer sympathy as he met with victims and families of the Florida high school massacre on Wednesday.
A photo from the event shows Trump holding what appears to be a piece of paper with the White House letterhead.
And while many of the notes are indiscernible, point number five is clearly visible – a reminder to himself to tell his guests: ‘I hear you.’
It seems the president had to remind himself to take the time to offer his condolences to the dozens of guests who had been directly impacted by the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, which left 17 dead, including 14 children.
Other questions that were also visible on the card included: ‘What would you most want me to know about your experience?’ and ‘What can we do to help you feel safe?’
‘I HEAR YOU’:During his meeting with survivors and parents of the Parkland school massacre at the White House on Wednesday, Trump carried a cue card reminding him to offer his condolences
Other questions that were also visible on the card included: ‘What would you most want me to know about your experience?’ and ‘What can we do to help you feel safe?’
Survivors of the shooting and their parents sat with Trump at the White House for a tearful listening session in which they implored the president to take action on gun violence.
The meeting came as thousands of high schoolers held walkouts and protests around the country to bring attention to gun control.
Parkland parent Andrew Pollack told the president he was ‘pissed’ as he described his daughter Meadow’s horrific death to the president and other families present – she was shot nine times.
‘I’m very angry that this happened, because it keeps happening,’ the bereaved father said, declaring that 9/11 ‘happened once, and they fixed everything. How many schools, how many children have to get shot?’
Pollack told Trump, ‘It stops here with this administration and me. I’m not going to sleep until it’s fixed. And Mr. President, we’re going to fix it. Because I’m going to fix it. I’m not going to rest.’
‘Fix it! It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it! And I’m pissed! Because my daughter I’m not going to see again. She’s not here. She’s not here. She’s at, in North Lauderdale, in King David Cemetery. That’s where I go to see my kid now.’
After listening to parents like Pollack for some time, Trump said he’d be looking at making concealed carry permits available to teachers, which he admitted after asking for a show of support is certainly ‘controversial.’
Trump also endorsed stricter background checks and pledged his administration to considering age limits for the purchase of semi-automatic rifles like the one the Parkland shooter used and new measures to treat mentally ill individuals.
‘We’re going to pick out the strongest ideas, the most important ideas, the ideas that are going to work and we’re going to get them done,’ the president said. ‘It’s not going to be talk, like it’s been in the past. It’s going on too long. Too many instances. And we’re going to get it done.’
Parkland parent Carey Gruber plead with Trump to abandon partisan politics and take up reforms that will prevent shootings like the one that could have killed his son Justin.
Survivors of the Parkland shooting and their parents begged President Donald Trump to act on gun violence Wednesday at a tearful listening session at the White House. Here, he is seen listening to student body president, Julia Cordover
‘It’s not left and right, it’s a human issue, and we have to stop this,’ Gruber told the Republican president.
President Trump was holding his first of two listening sessions at the White House this week on the topic of school safety.
The discussion with parents and teachers connected to the Parkland, Florida, shooting included more than a dozen student survivors who also urged Trump to take action.
Parents and students affected by the Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings were in the room, as well, alongside local teachers and students who put on a spotlight on D.C.’s local crime problem.
The president spoke briefly at the top, and sympathetically asked questions several times in the middle of the meeting that aired live on national television, working off of notes that prompted him to ask, ‘What would you most want me to know about your experience’ and ‘What can we do to help you feel safe?’
Trump promised midway through attendees’ passionate accounts that ‘two minutes after this meeting’ he would begin working on the issue of gun violence in schools and we will ‘solve it together.’
‘And we don’t want others to go through the kind of pain that you’ve gone through,’ he told them.
The president broached the topic of armed guards in school, adding, ‘I think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it. A lot of people are going to like it. But the good thing is that you’ll have a lot of people with that.
‘You know, you can’t have 100 security guards in Stoneman Douglas. That’s a big school, that’s a massive school with a lot of acreage to cover, a lot of floor area,’ he said.
‘So that would be certainly a situation that is being discussed a lot by a lot of people. You would have a lot of people that would be armed. They would be ready. They are professionals. They may be Marines – that left the Marines, left the Army, left the Air Force – and they are very adept at doing that.’