Jill Biden Delivers Emotional Real-Time Reaction to Nashville Shooting: ‘I Am Truly Without Words, and Our Children Deserve Better’

First Lady Jill Biden delivered an emotional reaction to Monday’s school shooting, breaking the news to the audience at an event in Washington, D.C., and offering her prayers to the people of Nashville.

The shooting occurred at the preschool and elementary school at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Three children and three adults were confirmed dead by the Metro Nashville Police Department, as well as confirming that the shooter had engaged with the police and was dead.

Neither the victims nor the shooter have been identified yet, but the shooter was described by a spokesman for the MNPD as a female who appeared to be in her teens, and she was reportedly “armed with at least two assault type rifles and a handgun.” The shooter was later identified as being 28 years old, but her name has not been released.

CNN senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, guest-anchoring CNN Newsroom Monday afternoon, reported that the first lady had been speaking at at event in the nation’s capital when she was told the news and shared it with the audience.

Biden remarked that she “hate[d] to say” what she was about to report because the audience had been “so enthusiastic” with “so much energy and hope” — “but while you’ve been in this room, I don’t know whether you’ve been on your phones, but we just learned about another shooting in Tennessee, a school shooting.”

“And I am truly without words,” said Biden. “Our children deserve better. And we stand — all of us — we stand with Nashville in prayer.”

Marquardt repeated Biden’s quote — “our children deserve better” — and commented that “you could see the anguish and the sadness on her face.”

Watch above via CNN.

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