A 17-year-old survivor of the Parkland high school massacre in Florida bashed Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday for liking Twitter posts alleging that he was coached to attack President Donald Trump by his father, a former FBI agent.
"I am so sorry that these people have lost their faith in America," David Hogg, a senior, told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an interview with his father, Kevin Hogg. "I know I certainly haven't.
"The fact that these people refuse to believe that something like this could happen is something that all of us don't want to believe, but the sad truth is that it is," he said.
Trump Jr. apparently "liked" two conspiracy posts from the far-right news websites, The Gateway Pundit and One America News Network, according to news reports.
David Hogg, a student journalist who said he has interviewed other survivors, has slammed President Trump and other politicians on CNN and other news outlets for not demanding tighter gun restrictions in light of the shooting by Nikolas Cruz, 19, that killed 17 people and injured 14 others.
Cruz, who was expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year, is charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the attack at the school.
"The fact that Donald Trump Jr. liked the post is disgusting to me," David Hogg told Cooper. "It is also false in terms of the sense that these people keep saying that I am anti-Second Amendment and I am not.
"I want every American to be able to own a gun who has a mentally stable mind," he added. "A person that has a credible background that doesn't have previous major convictions.
"Those are the people who are at fault here.
"I do not want to take away the Constitutional rights of American citizens."
Kevin Hogg told Cooper that "my career has been perfect.
"I was a Navy pilot before I was an elementary school teacher.
"I got on with the FBI and I was proud of it — and I still am."
His FBI work, Hogg told Cooper, involved teaching management skills to people in Southeast Asia, Cambodia and the Philippines.
He said "I don't know why" the right-wing reports would slam his FBI service.
"They claimed that I was involved with something," he said. "And there is no way.
"I don't know why they would say that."
Kevin Hogg described his son as being "successful with anything he has chosen to do.
"And he is driven.
"He is much more-well-spoken than I am," he added. "But, you know, there is nothing significant than us ribbing each other all the time."
David Hogg told Cooper that he was ripping President Trump because "I think I have to take it to him because politicians won't.
"It is disgusting that so many people think this is true," he said of the right-wing news reports. "I support the Second Amendment, but in the same way that I support the freedom of speech.
"We have a right to live like we have a right to bear arms."
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