Press Secretary Chokes Up as She Answers Teenager’s Question on School Shootings

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, audibly choked up during Wednesday’s press briefing as she answered a student’s question about school shootings.

The student, Benje Choucroun, 13, was at the White House covering a children’s fitness event for Time for Kids, but was called on as he sat among the White House press corps. He said his school recently had a lockdown drill.

Reading from a sheet of paper, he said that one thing that affected students’ mental health was “the worry about the fact that we or our friends could get shot at school.”

“Specifically,” the boy asked, “can you tell me what the administration has done and will do to prevent these senseless tragedies?”

Sanders, her voice breaking at times, responded: “I think that as a kid, and certainly as a parent, there is nothing that could be more terrifying for a kid to go to school and not feel safe. So I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

She continued: “This administration takes it seriously, and the school safety commission that the president convened is meeting 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 make their parents feel good about dropping them off.”

President Donald Trump has called for action after some high-profile school shootings, but little has come of it beyond the creation of the commission, which is overseen by Betsy DeVos, the education secretary.

After a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people in February, Trump said he would look at stricter background checks and raising the minimum age for buying assault weapons. He also suggested arming teachers, giving them a bonus to carry guns.

Those proposals have gone nowhere. He later said on Twitter that there was “not much political support (to put it mildly)” on raising the minimum age.

In the only tangible action, Attorney General Jeff Sessions introduced regulations in March to ban so-called bump stocks, a device used in last year’s massacre in Las Vegas. But the ban has not gone into effect and could still face legal challenges from gun rights groups.