FL Victim: Trump’s Phone Call ‘Didn’t Make Me Feel Better In The Slightest’

US President Donald Trump takes part in a listening session on gun violence with teachers and students in the State Dining Room of the White House on February 21, 2018. Trump promised more stringent background checks... US President Donald Trump takes part in a listening session on gun violence with teachers and students in the State Dining Room of the White House on February 21, 2018. Trump promised more stringent background checks on gun owners Wednesday as he hosted a group of students who survived last week's mass shooting at a Florida high school. / AFP PHOTO / Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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A victim of last week’s Florida high school shooting said that she had “never been so unimpressed by a person” as she was when President Donald Trump spoke to her in a phone call to her hospital room.

“He said he heard that I was a big fan of his,” Samantha Fuentes, who was shot in both legs during the Parkland massacre, told the New York Times in an interview published on Thursday. “And then he said, ‘I’m a big fan of yours too.'”

“I’m pretty sure he made that up,” she added.

Fuentes said that she did not feel reassured by Trump’s remarks: “He didn’t make me feel better in the slightest.”

Trump spent the weekend after the shooting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he attended a disco-themed party — to wide criticism — though a White House aide told Bloomberg News that Trump planned to skip his usual round of golf “to respect the dead and the mourners.”

On Wednesday, Trump held a listening session with survivors of the shooting. During the event, he held a white notecard with a list of five discussion prompts, including “I hear you.”

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 21: President Donald Trump holds his speaking notes during a listening session about school safety with high school students and teachers in the State Dining Room at The White House on February 21, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Trump’s apparent awkwardness in situations where he was called on to offer condolences to and express solidarity with survivors and grieving families has previously landed him in hot water.

In October 2017, Myeshia Johnson, the widow of a fallen soldier, said that Trump’s call brought her to tears when he told her that her late husband “knew what he signed up for.”

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Notable Replies

  1. “He said he heard that I was a big fan of his,”

    It's all about Donald, 24/7/365.
  2. Avatar for j.dave j.dave says:

    That empathy cue card has no chance to help him when he’s holding it face down.

    Sources report that the side facing him read:

    1. Two all-beef patties

    2. Special sauce

    3. Lettuce

    4. Cheese

    5. Pickles

    6. Onions

    7. Sesame seed bun

  3. Maybe her fan can arrange for a little bit of assistance paying hospital schools.

    Samantha Fuentes, 18, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was shot in both legs and struck in the face with shrapnel. She currently has multiple stitches in her cheek, forehead and a bruise around her right eye.

    The shrapnel entered the right side of her face and went up her cheek and behind her eye.

    There are still fragments lodged near her eye. “It is behind the lobe of my eye,” she said. Fuentes said she is going to talk to a retinal specialist to discuss the next steps.

    “Removing it can be a very difficult procedure to have but if [the shrapnel] doesn’t migrate than they won’t have to remove it because it’s sterile and it is a piece of hot metal,” she said.

  4. Did Donnie say that it was the victim’s fault? Or just Hillary and Obama?

  5. She’ll grow up to be what most TPMers are. Cynical, unforgiving and disbelieving of anything PuPPet says.

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