ABC White House Correspondent Calls Out Trump Over School Shooting: Hasn’t Thrown ‘Weight’ Of His Office Into Addressing ‘This Epidemic’
ABC News White House correspondent Mary Bruce called out President Donald Trump for not throwing “the weight and the heft” of his office into addressing mass shootings.
In a report from outside the White House during ABC’s special report coverage of the Minneapolis school shooting on Wednesday, Bruce noted that Trump and Vice President JD Vance called for prayers for the victims. But Bruce then echoed comments from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) — who rejected the calls for thoughts and prayers.
“As you heard from the mayor there in his heartfelt remarks saying, you know, praying isn’t enough at this point,” Bruce said. “These children were quite literally praying when they were gunned down.”
Bruce went on to call out the president for not sufficiently addressing mass shootings, while simultaneously positioning himself as “tough on crime.”
“We have said this far too often,” Bruce said. “There simply is not the political will in this town, and there hasn’t been for some time now, to take meaningful action on gun reforms. President Trump cast himself as a tough-on-crime president. Right now in Washington, D.C., members of the National Guard are here on the street. The administration has taken significant steps to take control of the Metropolitan Police Department here. But he has not, so far, thrown really the weight and the heft of his administration behind doing something to meaningfully address this epidemic in this country.”
The ABC White House correspondent said Americans will be turning to the president and his team for answers in the wake of the tragedy.
“Now, once again, the spotlight will be on this White House, on Washington, and on this administration, wondering what — if anything — Washington is going to do about it,” Bruce said. “It is a question we ask, it seems, every couple weeks in this country. And yet we continue to see these horrific, awful events, this one once again impacting small school children simply trying to enjoy the first week of class.”
Watch above, via ABC News.
