President Barack Obama will travel to California on Friday to meet privately with families of the victims of the San Bernardino shooting, the White House said. The president, who has long criticized the nation’s gun policy, has also sought to reassure Americans that the United States can meet the risky and “evolving” threat of terrorism. Obama has since worked to explain to Americans his strategy for combating Islamic State and preventing further attacks. “I know we see our kids in the faces of the young people killed in Paris”, Obama said in an address earlier this month.
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At this point of time no media access to the meeting has been panned, Earnest said. No public statement by the president is expected.
Such a move would surely draw criticism from gun rights groups and Republicans in Congress, who say Obama lacks the authority to expand background checks on his own.
Most recently, in October, Obama met privately with families of the victims after a student gunman killed eight students and a teacher at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, before turning the gun on himself.
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Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s senior adviser who also attended the meeting with Bloomberg Wednesday, said this week that the executive orders would be reveled in “short order”, but refused to offer any more detailed timelines.
