MILWAUKEE – A day before the Spurs travel to Washington D.C., Spurs coach Gregg Popovich criticized President Trump for spending Saturday in Florida while hundreds of thousands of young people and their supporters marched in the nation's capital to demand stronger gun control laws.

Trump's weekend in Florida, included a stint at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

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"It's just cowardice," Popovich said. "A real leader would have been in Washington D.C. this weekend, not in his penthouse at Mar-a-Lago, would have had the decency to meet with the group, to see what is going on and how important it is and how important our children should be to us."

Saturday's rallies, billed by organizers as the March for Our Lives, were held in cities all over the nation, including San Antonio and Houston, and were in reaction to the Valentine's Day attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead.

Students from the school have spearheaded what has become a world-wide movement to enact stricter gun laws.

"I'm sure most everybody has to be unbelievably proud and excited about those students and what they've done because our politicians have certainly sat on their thumbs and just hidden," Popovich told reporters before Sunday's game. "It's almost like a dereliction of duty to watch all these people get killed with guns in so many different ways, whether it's night clubs or schools or cities, and it seems like the power and the money are more important than lives."

Popovich encouraged politicians to take action just as the students have done.