Obama on Tucson Tragedy: Nation is "Grieving and in Shock"

President Obama said Monday that "all of us are still grieving and in shock from the tragedy that took place" in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, adding that the heroic actions in the wake of the attack "speaks to the best of America."

Mr. Obama, speaking to reporters during a joint news conference with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, said he had been "spending a lot of time just thinking about the families" of the victims - both from the perspective of a president and a father.

"Gabby Giffords and others are still fighting to recover," Mr. Obama said. "Families are still absorbing the enormity of their losses. We have a criminal investigation that is ongoing, and charges that no doubt will be brought against the perpetrator of this heinous crime."

The president emphasized that it was important to focus on the "the extraordinary courage that was shown during the course of these events." He cited, among others, 20-year-old Daniel Hernandez, an intern who tended to Giffords in the minutes following the shooting - and may have saved the congresswoman's life.

That response and others "speaks to is the best of America, even in the face of such mindless violence," Mr. Obama said.

"In coming days we're going to have a lot of time to reflect," he said. "Right now, the main thing we're doing is to offer our thoughts and prayers to those who have been impacted - making sure that we're joining together and pulling together as a country."

He went on to offer his condolences to Mr. Sarkozy for the recent kidnapping of two French citizens in Niger, noting that the event "points to the challenge of terrorism that we jointly share."

"This is just one more area in which cooperation between France and the United States is so critical. We don't have a stronger friend and a stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy and the French people," Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama then outlined the nature of his subsequent meeting with Mr. Sarkozy. He said the two would discuss the G-8 and G-20 agendas and a slew of foreign policy issues, including the situations in Iran, Lebanon, and the Ivory Coast.