Poll: Just one-third approve of Trump’s handling of Florida shooting

Just one-third of Americans approve of the way President Trump has handled last week’s deadly shooting at a Florida high school, according to a new poll.

The CBS News poll released Friday finds just 33 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Fifty percent of those surveyed disapprove of the way Trump has handled the shooting, and 17 percent said they didn’t know or had no answer.

The poll finds a strong partisan divide on Trump’s handling of the shooting. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans approve of the way Trump has handled the shooting, while just seven percent of Democrats approve. Among independents, 32 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the attack.

{mosads}Eighty-four percent of Democrats disapprove of Trump’s response to the attack, and 45 percent of independents disapprove. Just 15 percent of Republicans disapprove of the way Trump has handled the shooting, according to the poll.

The poll was conducted by telephone between Feb. 20 and Feb. 22 among a nationwide sample of 1,012 adults. It has a margin of error of four percentage points.

Trump in recent days has committed to working on reforming gun laws, supporting raising the minimum age for gun purchases and vowing to push “comprehensive background checks.”

The president has also suggested giving some trained teachers the ability to carry concealed weapons as a way of preventing future shootings.

But Trump faced criticism Saturday after tweeting that the FBI could have stopped the shooting, which left 17 people dead and multiple others injured, if the bureau had spent less time on the Russia investigation.

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable,” Trump tweeted. “They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

The White House on Tuesday attempted to walk back Trump’s tweet, denying that Trump was blaming the Russia investigation for the shooting.

“He was speaking not necessarily that that was the cause. I think we all have to be aware that the cause of this was that of a deranged individual that made a decision to take the lives of 17 other people. That is the responsibility of the shooter,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

“He’s making the point [that] we’d like our FBI agencies to not be focused on something that is clearly a hoax, in terms of investigating the Trump campaign.”