In the wake of last week's school shooting in Parkland, Florida, young people are angry: angry at the NRA, at lawmakers reluctant to take action on gun control, and at President Trump. Despite the president's "thoughts and prayers," talking points on empathy, and break with the NRA, he hasn't done much to quell the outrage people around the country are feeling after 17 students and staff died at an American high school.
Now it looks like Trump couldn't even manage to console recovering survivors over the phone, like Samantha Fuentes, 18, who got a call from the president while she was still in the hospital. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior, who had been shot in both legs and still had shrapnel behind her eye, said she'd "never been so unimpressed by a person in my life."
"He didn’t make me feel better in the slightest," Fuentes told the New York Times. "He said he heard that I was a big fan of his, and then he said, 'I’m a big fan of yours too,'" she added. "I'm pretty sure he made that up."
It was the first bizarre exchange in what would turn out to be a painfully awkward conversation, Fuentes said. Trump allegedly went on to call suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz a "sick puppy."
Fuentes is now just one of many Marjory Stoneman students who hasn't been afraid to speak truth to power in the wake of the school shooting. A handful of survivors have already become activists, leading rousing speeches, challenging politicians and NRA leaders, planning massive rallies, and even facing down right-wing conspiracy theories, all to fight for stronger gun control.
Fuentes was released from the hospital shortly after speaking with President Trump and she now says she hopes to be "a voice to what happened."
"My survival is important now more than ever," the teenager told Inside Edition. "I think it is important for people to have a physical reminder of what it looks like. That is why I am showing my face. I am not very shameful of it at all because it is truth."
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Related: Teens Tell Us Why They're Protesting After the Parkland Shooting
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