David Hogg has made a career out of turning tragedy into a pulpit, and after Wednesday’s massacre at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, he was back in front of the cameras—this time on CNN—branding President Donald Trump “a coward” for not pushing sweeping gun control.
Two children were murdered during Mass. Seventeen others were injured. The shooter, a 23-year-old biological male who identified as transgender, left behind videos, weapons etched with anti-Trump messages, and a manifesto brimming with anti-religious hatred.
Yet when Hogg appeared on The Situation Room, his ire wasn’t directed at the killer, at the ideology fueling the violence, or at the cultural conditions that made it possible. His target was Donald Trump.
“The bottom line is this,” Hogg told Pamela Brown. “Donald Trump has the power to do something about this… And my message to Donald Trump is that you are a coward, sir.” He accused Trump of being “terrified of the NRA” and unwilling to “save tens of thousands of lives.”
The irony, of course, is staggering. After Parkland in 2018, it wasn’t the NRA that failed—it was the FBI, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, and the local school district, all of whom ignored glaring red flags about Nikolas Cruz.
Cruz had even been caught on school grounds with bullets, yet nothing was done. That government failure is now conveniently forgotten by activists like Hogg, who continue to frame every shooting as proof that only more laws can save lives.
Meanwhile, CNN itself couldn’t resist adding to the misinformation. Senior justice correspondent Evan Perez told viewers that semi-automatic firearms can fire “dozens of bullets” with a single trigger pull—a blatant falsehood.
Semi-automatics fire one round per pull of the trigger, something even a basic Google search would have made clear. It was yet another example of how sloppy reporting feeds hysteria rather than clarity.
The White House responded with solemnity rather than politics. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump had spoken with Gov. Tim Walz, ordered flags to half-staff, and called for national prayer. She also pushed back on Jen Psaki’s mocking of prayer on MSNBC, calling it “incredibly insensitive and disrespectful” to families clinging to faith in the face of unspeakable grief.
