Video: Consoler in Chief Speaks After Meeting With Orlando Families
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden spent Thursday afternoon meeting with families who lost loved ones in Sunday’s horrific terror attack on a gay Orlando nightclub. The Consoler in Chief spoke after spending several hours with the families, who asked that the nation do more to end gun violence.
“We have to end discrimination and violence against our brothers and sisters in the LGBT community,” the President urged. “I held and hugged grieving family members and parents and they asked, ‘Why does this keep happening?’ And they pleaded that we do more to stop the carnage.”
“This was an act of terrorism, but it was also an act of hate,” President Obama recognized. “This was an attack on the LGBT community. Americans were targeted because we’re a country that has learned to welcome everyone, no matter who you are or who you love. And hatred towards people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, it’s a betrayal of what’s best in us.”
“The motives of this killer may have been different than the mass shooters in Aurora, or Newtown, but the instruments of death were so similar,” the President observed.
“These families,” the President said,  “Are our family. They’re part of the American family.” He said he and Vice President Biden told them, “on behalf of the American people, that our hearts are broken, too.”Â
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