A Parkland survivor just eviscerated Trump for using a victim’s photo to get campaign donations
By now, you’ve likely heard that the Trump campaign emailed a photo of a Parkland shooting victim in an attempt to collect donations — for themselves. ICYMI: the campaign sent out their weekly newsletter via email on February 24th, and included a photo of 17-year-old Madeleine Wilford lying in a hospital bed while being visited by Donald and Melania Trump.
The newsletter then implored subscribers to donate to the Trump 2020 reelection campaign/buy Trump merchandise, saying, “President Trump is taking steps toward banning gun bump stocks and strengthening background checks for gun purchasers. The President has made his intent very clear: ‘making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority.’”
Never mind the fact that making guns more accessible to people with mental health problems was one of Trump’s very first acts in office.
Here was the initial photo shared in the email:
Which has been (understandably) met with condemnation and outrage by many commentators and members of the public.
Unbelievable: the Trump campaign just sent out an email using the Parkland shooting, including photos of survivors, to raise money for his reelection campaign. pic.twitter.com/2WInImvsIA
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) February 24, 2018
And now fellow Parkland survivor — and one of Madeleine’s apparent best friends — Morgan Williams spoke up about the use of the photo via Twitter.
Don’t you fucking dare use a photo of one of my best friends for your benefit. If you truly cared, maybe you would have stayed at the hospital longer than 20 minutes. https://t.co/BOI6VbiJIk
— Morgan Williams (@morganw_44) February 25, 2018
Neither Morgan nor Madeleine’s families have responded to requests for comments about the use of the photo nor Morgan’s tweet, but one thing is clear: Today’s teens are awake and savvy, and they’re doing everything in their power to disrupt the status quo on gun laws in this country (and doing so in ingeniously creative ways). Gun lobbyist: you’ve been warned.
