During a White House briefing on Wednesday, a student journalist was given an opportunity to ask Press Secretary Sarah Sanders a question. The little boy asked her what the White House “has done and will do” to prevent school shootings.

“At my school we recently had a lock-down drill,” the student began. “One thing that affects mine and other students’ mental health is to worry about the fact that we or our friends could get shot at school. Specifically, can you tell me what the administration has done and will do to prevent these senseless tragedies?”

As Sanders began to reply, she choked up and told the boy that “as a kid and certainly as a parent, there is nothing that could be more terrifying for a kid than to go to school and not feel safe. So I’m sorry you feel that way.”

But when it came time to actually answer his question, she had nothing. All she could do was reference White House meetings that haven’t even happened yet.


“This administration takes it seriously, and the school safety commission that the president convened is meeting again this week — again 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 to make their parents feel good about dropping them off,” Sanders said, before moving on by calling on an adult reporter.

In reality, the White House has done little to nothing to prevent school shootings.

In response to a school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida in February, President Trump unveiled a “school safety proposal” that contained precisely zero provisions opposed by the NRA, which spent $30 million to elect him. The president has made it clear that he thinks the problem of gun violence can only be solved with more guns, and he’s repeatedly expressed support for militarizing schools with armed guards.

When Sanders has previously been pressed about what the White House is doing to stop school shootings, she’s either attacked reporters for “basically accusing the president of being complicit in a school shooting” or attempted to pivot the conversation to give Trump credit for the decline in violent crime that began decades before he was sworn into office.


According to figures compiled by CNN, through the first 21 weeks of 2018, there were 23 school shootings in which someone was hurt or killed.