Florida shooting survivor David Hogg 'hung up on White House call' inviting him to Trump listening session
'We don’t need to listen to President Trump — Trump needs to listen to the screams of the children'
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Your support makes all the difference.A survivor of a shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School has said he hung up on a phone call from the White House.
David Hogg, a 17-year-old student, said he received a call asking if he was planning to attend a discussion with Donald Trump.
But he said he found the call “offensive”, since the call came during a period of mourning.
Before he hung up, he said he told the White House official: “We don’t need to listen to President Trump. President Trump needs to listen to the screams of the children and to this nation.”
In the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 students and teachers dead, a group of students including Mr Hogg founded gun control advocacy group Never Again MSD.
During an appearance on HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Mayer, Mr Hogg said: “I actually hung up on the White House the other day... They called me the day before the listening session and asked if we were going to come.
“And I said I’m not coming because we expect President Trump to come to the CNN town hall, which he declined an invitation from.”
While fellow Republican Marco Rubio accepted CNN’s request to participate in a nationally televised meeting with students and parents at the end of February, Mr Trump turned it down, choosing instead to host his own discussion at the White House.
Mr Hogg added: “The fact they called us the day before [the White House meeting] I found very offensive, considering the fact there were funerals the next day — there was mourning we still had to do.”
The 17-year-old has previously vowed not to return to school until a new gun control measure is passed.
Mr Trump has responded to the shooting by advocating arming some teachers – an idea rejected by Never Again MSD – and moving to ban devices known as bump stocks that allow semi-automatic rifles to spray bullets.
Fellow student and gun control advocate Cameron Kasky said he had been disappointed by the Florida officials’ response to the shooting.
“We met with some of the legislators in Tallahassee and we felt we didn’t really get far enough... they wouldn’t even discuss assault weapons there.
“What they did discuss, though, was porn as a public health emergency... sadly that’s the only thing they seem to care about.”
A number of students from Stoneman travelled to the state capital to lobby for stronger gun controls at the end of February.
But a motion to consider a bill that would ban assault rifles was rejected.
Less than an hour later, Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives approved a proposal to label pornography a “public health risk”.
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