Sarah Huckabee Sanders, after delaying for over an hour and a half, rushed onto the stage and began reading a statement on the shooting at Parkland, Florida, at “Flight of the Bumblebee” speed. The statement included information that Trump spent time with shooting victims—though Trump’s visit was about as long as Sanders’ chipmunkified intro. She finished up with the standard statements on how they support law enforcement. Thoughts. Prayers. All that jazz.
She then announced that Trump would have a series of “listening sessions,” that would include students and parents from schools that had experienced shootings, schools that hadn’t experienced shootings, local politicians, state politicians, and law enforcement—all of which will take an undisclosed number of weeks.
When the QA session began, the first question was why Trump continued to insist that Russia had not meddled in the election. Sanders insisted that Trump “has acknowledged it multiple times before. During the transition. At a press conference in Poland, and … in Poland.” She also insisted that Trump hasn’t said that Russia didn’t meddle—despite almost countless examples of Trump saying exactly that. Sanders insisted that what Trump said was that the Russian interference didn’t have an impact, and that it was “very clear” that the Trump campaign didn’t collude—both of which are statements unsupported by a single lick of evidence, but which Sanders was careful to repeat multiple times.
When asked about sanctions, Sanders launched into her claim that Trump … “Has been tougher … far tougher on Russia than Obama.” How exactly, Sanders cited the budget Trump sent out that had more money for defense “which Russia won’t like” and increased shipments of US energy to Europe “which Russia won’t like.”
She also insisted that Trump had imposed sanctions … in the sense that he hadn’t repealed the sanctions put in place by Obama. And that he’s taken away property … in that he hasn’t given back the properties that Obama took from the Russians. Which proves that Trump “Has been tougher on Russia in one year than Obama was in eight.”
Asked again why Trump hadn’t imposed the sanctions passed by Congress, Sanders improbably said that it wasn’t that simple, they couldn’t impose sanctions, because Russia hadn’t done anything wrong—this two minutes after acknowledging that Russia had interfered in the election, which was the subject of the sanctions.
Sanders spent a good deal of her hyper-speed conference trying to walk back statements that Trump made over the weekend, mostly by ignoring them and citing things said by other officials or with nothing at all. For example, she was asked about Trump’s tweet that the FBI failed to stop the Parkland shooter because they were too involved in Russia investigation, Sanders launched into a much-repeated statement that a “deranged individual” that made the decision to take the lives of 17 other people, completely failing to answer the question about Trump’s attack on the FBI.
And after first repeatedly insisting that Trump had acknowledged that Russia interfered in the election, Sanders came back with multiple uses of the word “hoax,” again insisting on the twin pillars of Trump denial: No effect on outcome, no collusion.
Sanders was asked about Trump’s feelings concerning the various members of his cabinet who he attacked to various degrees over the last week, and Sanders gave the blanket “still has faith” response that means exactly nothing.
Sanders hinted that Trump might be open to an age limit on AR-15s, and insisted that he was about to make an announcement on bump stocks, but most of the discussion on guns boiled down to a declaration that they had no ideas, and would be doing a lot of “listening.” Included, almost certainly, to the same people who insist that only more guns can save us.
Shortly after Sanders spoke, Trump did appear to make a micro-announcement that he had signed a memo directing Jefferson Sessions to propose a rule outlawing “all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns."
This doesn’t mean that Trump has signed an executive order. He hasn’t. It doesn’t mean Trump has banned bump stocks. He didn’t do that, either. In fact, this would seem to be nothing more than an announcement that the DOJ would continue doing what it’s supposedly been doing since at least the Las Vegas shooting, merely packaged up to make it seem as if Trump was doing something.
When will something actually happen? Trump expects it to be "very soon." Everyone else may disagree.