David Hogg offers apology to Rubio

March For Our Lives co-founder and Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg apologized to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Thursday for mistakenly calling him out for a skipped meeting on gun reform legislation. 

“Rubio staff said I can’t meet with him or his staff because I ‘trigger’ him. I just wanna have a conversation,” Hogg wrote in a tweet around noon.

“Please meet with me @marcorubio I just want to figure out how we can stop these things from happening,” Hogg added. “We have to end the continuous debate and find what we can agree on”.

Hogg’s initial tweet drew a quick response from Rubio’s chief of staff, Michael Needham, who accused Hogg of intentionally lying about the meeting.

“No one said such a thing. As for the meeting, you must be confused as we had a 2p meeting scheduled with you,” Needham said in a tweet. “However, since you are lying and clearly using this all for self-promotion, that meeting is now cancelled.” 

“Also, the reporter doing a profile of you knows the meeting is real since she was emailing yesterday with our comms team about it,” Needham added. “Don’t lie again — we have receipts.” 

Hogg then tweeted at Rubio after 1 p.m., calling the mix-up an “honest mistake,” adding “got our meetings confused in the flurry and my staff misinformed me. I apologize.”

“We’d still love to meet with you and have an honest, respectful discussion,” Hogg added. “Deleted the tweet bc it wasn’t true but attaching here for transparency.” 

Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla, is a leading member of the student-led organization March for Our Lives, which announced meetings with more than 50 lawmakers this week ahead of some 450 demonstrations planned across the world to demand gun reform legislation. 

The House on Wednesday passed a sweeping gun package referred to as the Protecting Our Kids Act in a 223-204 vote, which addresses the issue of gun violence in the U.S. 

However, that package faces GOP opposition in the Senate, where a bipartisan group of senators is working on more limited gun legislation in response to the recent string of mass shootings. 

The Hill has reached out to David Hogg, March For Our Lives, and Marco Rubio’s office for comment.