Here is what Trump had to say…
Speaking at the National Rifle Association on Friday (May 27) in Houston, Texas, former President Donald Trump rejected gun reform.
The NRA event was already under scrutiny after many Republicans and entertainers pulled out of the event, with Lee Greenwood, the musician responsible for penning Trump’s entrance song, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” saying he would no longer be attending the event as his attendance would seem like an endorsement of the AR-15 rifle, used days earlier to massacre children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Trump, however, didn’t back out of the event, noting as much early in his comments, “And unlike some, I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up,” the former President said. His remarks weren’t only pointing to Greenwood but much more toward Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Senator John Cornyn, and Representative Dan Crenshaw, who pulled out of speaking at the event.
But Trump did honor each victim of the Uvalde, Texas mass shooting, reading each name aloud, with each name punctuated with th sound of a mission bell.
He also damned the 18-year-old shooter, saying, “while those he slaughtered are now with God in heaven, he will be eternally damned to burn in the fires of hell.”
Trump also focused on the mental health of the gunman, branding efforts to institute stricter gun controls as “repulsive” and “grotesque” with the former President saying: “No one should ever be allowed to get near a classroom until they have been checked, scanned, screened, and approved.”
