Parkland father praises Trump, blasts Democratic school policies
WFLX | August 25, 2020
An outspoken father who lost his daughter in the Parkland school shooting said the country’s children would be safer if President Trump is reelected than under a Joe Biden presidency.
Andrew Pollack, who spoke Monday during the Republican National Convention, said he wanted to speak at the event to show his support for Trump.
“He is a man of his word. He formed a school safety commission that the media really never spoke about. I wanted to get it out there, and I wanted to help the president,” Pollack told WPTV anchor Michael Williams.
Pollack, who now lives in Oregon, flew to Washington, D.C., to record the speech that aired Monday night during the RNC.
He is urging the public to vote Republican and says Democrats are “incapable of looking at failed policies,” claiming Democrats pushed an agenda when his daughter, Meadow, was one of 17 people killed on Feb. 14, 2018.
(Democrats) politicized her death. They didn’t look into any of the failed policies that happened in Parkland,” Pollack said.
On the other hand, the Parkland father praised Trump for forming the Federal Commission on School Safety.
“They came up with solutions. The same thing in the state of Florida under Gov. Scott at the time. He formed a commission. They looked into the failures. They came out with solutions. We passed a bill to make all kids safer,” Pollack said.
Pollack believes school children will be safer if Trump is reelected, saying the “failed Biden-Obama policies” pioneered in Broward County contributed to the Parkland tragedy.
“The president in his federal school safety commission, where they did research for almost a year into failed policies, realized that’s hurting our children,” Pollack said. (Trump) ended it. He rescinded those Obama-Biden policies, which meant the world to me.”
He said he fears if Biden is elected, he will work to implement Democratic-supported school safety policies across the country, which he doesn’t support.
Pollack also said he supports President Trump because they both believe parents should have the right to send their children to whichever school they want.
“Parents shouldn’t have to send their kids to a failing public school,” Pollack said. “Parents need the options. Charters schools are an option, private school, home school.
He said he doesn’t blame gun laws on the death of his daughter, blaming former Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for restorative justice policies.
“There’s plenty of gun laws,” Pollack said. “We need to fix the policies, harden our schools.”
Pollack praised lawmakers in Florida for having a law that will not allow the removal of resource officers in schools.
“Other states are removing police officers from schools, which is kind of ludicrous when you think about it,” Pollack said.
Biden’s website said he will seek gun legislation to make students safer and champion a law to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Pollack will head home to Oregon on Tuesday — another trip in his long journey on behalf of the daughter whose memory drives his mission for school safety.
