Sarah Huckabee Sanders may spend her days orchestrating press briefings and fielding tough questions from angsty reporters, but she clearly cares deeply about the well-being of her fellow Americans. That became crystal clear when Sanders became emotional after being asked a question about what the Trump administration was doing to ensure the safety of America’s schools.
This particular incident comes after a spate of mass shootings that have left numerous students dead and injured in schools across the country.
“At my school, we recently had a lockdown drill. One thing that affects my and other students’ mental health is the worry about we or our friends could get shot at school. Specifically, could you tell me what the administration has done or will do to prevent these senseless tragedies?” asked Benje Choucroun, a 13-year-old from California reporting for Time for Kids.
Sanders, a mother of three young children, choked up as she delivered her response.
“As a kid, and certainly as a parent, there is nothing that could be more terrifying for a kid to go to school and not feel safe, so I’m sorry that you feel that way,” Sanders replied as her voice began to crack. “This administration takes it seriously and the school safety commission that the president convened is meeting again this week — an official meeting to discuss the best ways forward and how we can do every single thing within our power to protect kids in our schools and to make them feel safe and their parents feel good about dropping them off.”
Trump met with families of some of the Santa Fe shooting victims during a visit to Houston Thursday “to personally offer his condolences and support,” according to CNN.
In the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, earlier this year, President Trump suggested that teachers should be armed in order to protect their students from armed intruders.
“It only works when you have people very adept at using firearms, of which you have many,” Trump said as he met with parents of the victims back in February.
“It’s called concealed carry, where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them,” Trump continued, as reported by the Guardian. “They’d go for special training and they would be there and you would no longer have a gun-free zone. Gun-free zone to a maniac, because they’re all cowards, a gun-free zone is: ‘Let’s go in and let’s attack, because bullets aren’t coming back at us.'”
“An attack has lasted, on average, about three minutes,” Trump added. “It takes five to eight minutes for responders, for the police to come in, so the attack is over. If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly.”
(H/T: CNN)