Parkland Survivor Calls Trump a “Professional Liar” After NRA Speech

The president will “say anything to appease whatever crowd he’s at,” said the student

Michael Candelori, Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A survivor of the Parkland school shooting ripped into President Donald Trump on Saturday for his speech to the National Rifle Association a day earlier, calling the president a “professional liar.”

Speaking on Friday at the NRA’s annual convention for the third time, Trump reaffirmed his loyalty to the gun lobby. “Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never, ever be under siege as long as Iā€™m your president,” he said.

Cameron Kasky, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, gave his reaction Saturday on CNN’s New Day. ā€œHeā€™s a professional liar who will say anything to appease whatever crowd heā€™s at,ā€ Kasky said. ā€œIf heā€™s in front of families, he might say something in support of common-sense gun reform, but then when heā€™s at the NRA, heā€™ll say something to get a big cheer.ā€ 

Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who also spoke on Friday, told the NRA they support arming teachers and “good guys with guns” to stop mass shootings. The NRA frequently claims that putting more guns in schools would deter shootings like the one in Parkland, although there’s no evidence that arming civilians prevents mass shootings.

Kasky also pointed out the “hypocrisy” that firearms were not allowed in the room as Trump and Pence gave their speeches. ā€œYouā€™d think that if someone supported the NRA, theyā€™d want as many ā€˜good guys with gunsā€™ in the room as possible, right?ā€ he said.

For a brief period after the Parkland shooting in February, Trump suggested he was open to new gun control measures, telling lawmakers, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” Pressured by the Parkland survivors, lawmakers, and gun control advocates to act after the shooting killed 17 people, the White House floated a proposal to raise the minimum age for purchasing some guns to 21. But Trump eventually dropped that idea under pressure from the NRA, instead proposing other reforms, including grants for ā€œrigorous firearms trainingā€ for teachers and improving local compliance with the National Institute Criminal Background Check System. 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate