President Donald Trump and the First Lady extended their sympathies to the victims and families of the violent attacks at Brown University, Bondi Beach in Australia, and Syria on Dec. 14 as he welcomed guests to the White House to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah.
“Before we begin, I want to just pay my respects to the people, unfortunately, two are no longer with us,” he said of the two killed by a gunman at Brown University. Nine others were injured in that attack.
“Two are looking down on us right now from heaven,” the president said.
“And to the families of those two that are no longer with us, I pay my deepest regards and respects from the United States of America. It’s a very important thing to say and we mean it.”
Hanukkah, or the Jewish Festival of Lights, arrived at nightfall on Dec. 14 this year and celebrates Jews reclaiming Jerusalem from foreign invaders who had placed pagan idols and sacrifices to Zeus in their temple.
“We’re here to celebrate Christmas and to celebrate and I think, today, we can very say loudly we celebrate Hanukkah because that was such a horrible attack. That was a purely anti-Semitic attack,” Trump said.
At least 15 victims have died and 40 injured. One of the two suspected gunman was killed by police in a shootout and the other is in custody in hospital. The gunmen were a father, 50, and son, 24, who lived in the western suburbs of Sydney—about 30 miles from Bondi Beach.
Trump expressed his admiration for the man who managed to disarm one of the gunmen in Bondi, while not taking the law into his own hands.
“In Australia you probably read, it’s been a very, very brave person actually, who went and attacked frontally one of the shooters and saved a lot of lives. So a very brave person who’s right now in the hospital pretty seriously wounded. So great respect to that man that did that,” Trump said.
The president also extended his thoughts to the three Americans who were killed and injured in the ISIS attack in Syria, which the new Syrian government has fought alongside American troops to help neutralize, Trump said.
“I just want to pay my respects to the families. We also had three injured, but two of them are already out of the hospital, and one’s going to be okay. But we lost three.”
U.S. forces were there to help with key leader engagement to support ongoing counter-ISIS and counterterrorism operations.
Trump said that interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was “devastated” by the attack and that the United States and Syria would “retaliate.”
“I can tell you, in Syria, there will be a lot of damage done to the people that did it. They got the person, the individual person, but there’ll be big damage done,” Trump added.
“So … it was a rough day,” the president said.
The First Lady had her own message for the family and friends of those who have been impacted by the attacks.
