Fox News's Shepard Smith on Thursday became emotional during his afternoon newscast, asking why can’t the U.S. "put their best and the brightest together" to stop mass shootings in U.S. schools.

He asked, "Why are our children killing each other more than anywhere else in the world?”

The commentary comes one day after 17 people were killed in a Florida high school. A former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student, Nikolas Cruz, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder following the attack.

The mass shooting was the deadliest U.S. school shooting since 2012, when 20 children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

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"We put a man on the moon 50 years ago and we can’t figure out why only our children are running around their schools killing each other?" he demanded. "It doesn’t happen everywhere else. It happens here."



"Why can’t they put the best and the brightest together to research it and figure it out and help us stop it? We're failing our children," the 54-year-old anchor continued.

"Yesterday’s massacre is the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history in which the suspect has survived. That’s according to Fox News researchers. So never before has somebody accused of shooting and killing this many people lived to see the inside of a courtroom. That’s something.”

Smith went on to name each of the 17 victims one by one.

On Wednesday, the longtime newsman also named all 25 fatal mass shootings at U.S. schools since the Columbine massacre in Colorado in 1999.

President Trump Donald John TrumpObama calls on Senate not to fill Ginsburg's vacancy until after election Planned Parenthood: 'The fate of our rights' depends on Ginsburg replacement Progressive group to spend M in ad campaign on Supreme Court vacancy MORE vowed on Thursday in an address to the nation that his administration will work to tackle school safety issues, but did not mention gun control during the seven-minute speech.

"Later this month, I will be meeting with the nation’s governors and attorney generals, where making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority," Trump said from the White House.

"It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make that difference," the president added.