Cameron Kasky, an outspoken survivor of the 2018 Parkland High School shooting, announced his bid for Congress on Tuesday, saying in a video that he’s running to work on laws that help “all Americans.”
“You and your family are working all week just to spend most of your paycheck on rent and health care,” the 25-year-old said in his launch video shared on social media. “Meanwhile, the richest people in our country are telling us that we can’t afford real solutions, like social housing and Medicare For All. No, we can only afford genocide, Palantir mass surveillance contracts and ICE thugs.”
Kasky said he’s been “taking on” members of Trump’s “regime” since he was a teenager. The video then cuts to a clip of then-17-year-old Kasky asking Marco Rubio, then a U.S. senator representing Florida, if he would promise to stop taking money from the National Rifle Association or NRA. (Rubio responded: “I will always accept the help of anyone who agrees with my agenda.”)
Kasky said in the launch video that he never planned on getting involved in politics until the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people and injured 18 others. Kasky was a junior at the time of the shooting.
