President Trump Orders Flags to Half-Staff for Capital Gazette Shooting Victims in Apparent Reversal

President Trump has ordered flags to half-staff in remembrance of the victims of the Capital Gazette shooting, after initially denying the gesture.

On Tuesday morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters from CNN that President Trump would be ordering flags to half-staff. She pointedly stated that the president had agreed as soon as Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley asked him to do so, though this directly contradicts Buckley’s own words.

On Monday, Buckely told the Baltimore Sun that he had requested the president order all flags to half-staff, but that the president had denied him.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed, you know?” he said. “Is there a cutoff for tragedy?”

“This was an attack on the press. It was an attack on freedom of speech,” he added. “It’s just as important as any other tragedy.”
Maryland state flags were lowered to half staff from Friday to Monday by order of Governor Larry Hogan, according to a report by The Hill. The Trump presidency has seen numerous other mass shootings and tragedies, and the president has ordered flags to be lowered for many of them.

Some took his hesitance this time around to be a reflection of his self-proclaimed loathing for journalism. However, on Friday he did address the tragedy during a white house event, saying: “Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.”

Still, the White House issued a proclamation on Tuesday, and American flags were lowered accordingly.

“Americans across the country are united in calling upon God to be with the victims and to bring aid and comfort to their families and friends,” it read. “Our Nation shares the sorrow of those affected by the shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.”

“As a mark of solemn respect for the victims of the terrible act of violence perpetrated on June 28, 2018, by the authority vested in me as President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, July 3, 2018.”