The recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, spurred a rare sense of cautious optimism that President Donald Trump might finally take on gun control, as the president ramped up his rhetoric about the need for stricter background checks. But in an unsurprising twist, it looks like Trump has instead caved to the National Rifle Association once again. The Atlantic reports that despite the NRA's weakened stance amid its ongoing upheaval, the president shifted his thinking on background checks after a phone call with NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre. When Trump asked whether the NRA could give in at all on background checks, LaPierre's answer was reportedly a simple and unequivocal “no”—and with that, Trump's short-lived stint as a background check advocate was officially dead.
The president's desire to see background checks passed was seemingly a real one, though naturally more for the personal glory he could gain from it than any real desire to curb the mass shooting epidemic. Per the Atlantic, Ivanka Trump, who reportedly advocated for background checks before decamping to Wyoming for vacation, proposed the idea of Trump televising his signing of any potential background check legislation from the White House's Rose Garden. And, given that the president is motivated by nothing more than the promise of boasting about his achievements to a national audience, Trump was apparently totally on board. “He loved it. He was all spun up about it,” a former senior White House official told the Atlantic. Trump had already been talking up the idea of “meaningful” background checks in the wake of the mass shootings, tweeting that “serious discussions” were taking place about it and touting background checks as an example of “common sense things [that] can be done that are good for everyone!” “He seems determined to do something and believes there is space to get something done this time around,” Sen. Lindsey Graham told the Washington Post in the shootings' aftermath. “The president has a pretty common-sense point of view. He’s never been a sports or gun enthusiast. But he is more determined than ever to do something on his watch.”
Trump, however, also noted in his tweet that he'd been speaking with the NRA “so that their very strong views can be fully represented and respected”—so naturally, the powerful gun lobby's opinion won out in the end. Though Trump reportedly pushed his background check plan on LaPierre—“It’s going to be great, Wayne,” Trump said, according to officials briefed on the call. “They will love us”—the NRA CEO's refusal meant Trump's “Rose Garden fantasy” had to die. Trump reportedly spoke again with LaPierre Tuesday afternoon and assured him that universal background checks are now “off the table,” after a concerted NRA push that also reportedly included NRA officials “refocusing their efforts” to walk Trump through past mass shootings and convince him that universal background checks would not have helped. “He was cementing his stance that we already have background checks and that he’s not waffling on this anymore,” the former White House official told the Atlantic about the Tuesday call. “He doesn’t want to pursue it.” Trump's reported comments to LaPierre echo the president's own shifting rhetoric in public about background checks, as the president told reporters Sunday, “People don’t realize, we have very strong background checks right now.” Instead, Trump suggested in his call with LaPierre that he is now focused on increased spending for mental health (despite having previously made it easier for people with mental illness to obtain firearms) and “directing attorneys general across the country to start prosecuting ‘gun crime’ through federal firearms charges from the Justice Department.”
The about-face on background checks is something of a familiar pattern for Trump, who's repeatedly appeared open to background checks and similar reforms before, only to quickly sideline the issue. The Post reported that current and former White House sources say the president has frequently been “ambivalent” about his post-shootings response, polling aides to determine what measures would have political support. “If they did not gain backing, he was not inclined to lead the charge,” the Post notes.
Outside of the NRA and the lawmakers it influences, though, universal background checks do appear to be politically popular. A recent Fox News poll showed 90% of voters in support of them, including 89% of Republicans. That the president would instead acquiesce to the NRA once again—whose very public turmoil continued Tuesday with the resignation of three more NRA leaders—shows how the battered gun lobby group still has enough clout to stop Republican-led gun control efforts dead in their tracks. As Politico contributing editor Bill Scher pointed out in February 2018, this could be because the NRA's influence is tied not to its financials, but the gun culture that it has perpetuated and built into a monolithic force. “Why does the NRA always win?” Scher wrote. “It’s not the money. It’s because the NRA has built a movement that has convinced its followers that gun ownership is a way of life, central to one’s freedom and safety, that must be defended on a daily basis.”
Of course, Trump isn't the only Republican grappling with gun control right now. With several Republicans recently coming out in favor of increased gun control measures, the former White House official told the Atlantic that once Congress reconvenes, it's entirely possible that “Trump will change his mind yet again.” But as with Trump, expecting Republican lawmakers to come around on gun control feels like a fool's errand. Even the Republicans who support gun control measures have said that they would need Trump's support in order for there to be any hope of reform, making his current alignment with the NRA a likely death knell for any potential legislation. “The president is key on this,” Senator Susan Collins told Politico, adding that the president advocating for background checks and red flag bills “will help us with members of the Republican Caucus.” And as Sen. Chris Murphy recently told my colleague Abigail Tracy, Republicans on the Hill, too, can't seem to resist the siren song of the NRA. “The gun lobby and the Republican Party have been intertwined and intermingled for decades. It’s a long process to untie the Republican Party from the gun lobby,” Murphy said. “Instinctively, many Republicans know that it's a horrible long-term political bet for them to remain blindly loyal to the gun lobby. But that’s a hard habit to break.”
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