This material may not be published , broadcast , rewritten or redistributed . > > > as we mentioned president obama will head to arizona to speak to a memorial service on wednesday to support and remember the victims of the shooting. nbc 's white house correspondent savannah guthrie has details. savannah , good morning . > > reporter : good morning to you meredith. the president just accepted this invitation by the university of arizona at 6 : 00 eastern time last night and they just started working on this speech. the president has said he feels the need to speak to this sense of loss. he wants to share remember brnss with the victim and try to be here to pull the community together. that 's the purpose of him coming. there 's no word yet on whether the president will address what a lot of people are talking about which of course is the divisive political climate we have seen . > > savannah , i know that that is your alma mater , your house is about five minutes away from where the shooting occurred , yo your -- the shock has to be wearing off at this point ? > > the shock is there and you just talk to people and they 're prone to burst into tears. they can 't believe it happened here. this is a big city , it 's grown so much even in the time i have moved away. but in many ways , it 's still a tight knit community. they call it the old pueblo , a sleepy desert town and people are so shocked and they don 't want the rest of the country and the world to see them in this way. in many ways i don 't think it can ever really sink in. i asked somebody , do you think tucson has lost its innocence , and they said i don 't want to believe that , but in some ways , yes . > > savannah guthrie , thank you so much .