Trump visits Florida shooting victims and first responders

President Trump traveled to Parkland, Florida, Friday evening to visit victims and first responders of Wednesday's shooting at a local high school which left 17 people dead. He first went to Broward Health North Hospital with first lady Melania Trump, posing for photos with medical staff, one patient, and her family.
Trump also stopped by the Broward County Sheriff's office. "What a job you've done," he said to various law enforcement officers he met. "You deserve credit." The president declared the shooting "very sad" and took limited questions from reporters as he left the hospital, ignoring one about gun policy.
He posted pictures from the meeting on Twitter later that night, reiterating his thanks to first responders.
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The photos quickly came under criticism for the president's broad smile and cheery thumbs up, which some observers felt was inappropriate given the gravity of the situation.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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