WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden prepared to address the nation Tuesday night shortly after returning to the White House from a five-day trip to Asia that was bookended by “horrific” mass tragedy.
Biden was on Air Force One Tuesday afternoon when officials said a gunman acting alone killed at least 14 students and a teacher at a Texas elementary school. His departure for Asia last week came just two days after he met with victims’ families after a hate-motivated shooter killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.