Gun control advocate David Hogg is not getting a meeting with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) after claiming he triggered the lawmaker.
In a tweet on Thursday morning, Hogg — a survivor of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting — wrote, “Rubio staff said I can’t meet with him or his staff because I ‘trigger’ him. I just wanna have a conversation. Please meet with me.”
“[Rubio] I just want to figure out how we can stop these things from happening. We have to end the continuous debate and find what we can agree on,” he added.
Rubio’s chief of staff, Michael Needham, fired back on Twitter, “No one said such a thing. As for the meeting, you must be confused as we had a 2p meeting scheduled with you.”
However, he said, “Since you are lying and clearly using this all for self-promotion, that meeting is now cancelled.”
“Also, the reporter doing a profile of you knows the meeting is real since she was emailing yesterday with our comms team about it. Don’t lie again — we have receipts,” he added.
Also, the reporter doing a profile of you knows the meeting is real since she was emailing yesterday with our comms team about it. Don’t lie again — we have receipts.
— Michael Needham (@MikeNeedham) June 9, 2022
About an hour later, Hogg shared a screenshot of the original tweet and wrote, “[Rubio] an honest mistake, got our meetings confused in the flurry and my staff misinformed me. I apologize.”
“We’d still love to meet with you and have an honest, respectful discussion,” he continued.
Finally, Hogg added, “Deleted the tweet [because] it wasn’t true but attaching here for transparency.”
.@marcorubio an honest mistake, got our meetings confused in the flurry and my staff misinformed me. I apologize. We’d still love to meet with you and have an honest, respectful discussion. Deleted the tweet bc it wasn’t true but attaching here for transparency. pic.twitter.com/icmaLoSA0C
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) June 9, 2022
The exchange comes after the House passed a gun control package in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month,
The measure would raise the age to buy certain semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 and ban the sale of large-capacity magazines.
CNN also reports it would “establish new federal offenses for gun trafficking” and “allow local governments to compensate individuals who surrender such magazines through a buyback program.”
“It would create a tax incentive for retail sales of safe storage devices and criminal penalties for breaking new requirements regulating firearm storage on residential premises. The measure would also take steps to strengthen existing federal regulations on bump stocks and ghost guns,” CNN added.
However, that package is not expected to pass the Senate.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a key negotiator in the debate over gun control measures in the upper chamber, has poured cold water on the idea of raising the age to buy semiautomatic weapons, renewing the assault weapons ban, or limiting high capacity magazines.