What a surprise: Trump isn't interested in gun control

“He’s started to move on,” a White House official conceded, adding that they haven’t heard the president discussing the topic in recent days with the same urgency or frequency that punctuated the immediate aftermath of the high-profile shootings. “If it were up to the president, he’d do background checks today. But that’s not how it works, and he loses patience [quickly].”

  Daily Beast

He's not a fan of democracy.

That Trump’s attention span drifted elsewhere before Congress could even reconvene to debate gun control reform was hardly a surprise. The president has promised to tackle background checks before, only to drop the idea once the mass shooting that precipitated his apparent interest faded from the news cycle. Two sources close to the president each said they had spoken to Trump in the past week, and neither recalled him saying anything about seriously pushing expanding background checks.

Did they ask?

“There is nothing happening,” one Senate Democratic aide, who asked to be referred to as a "severely depressed staffer who has been through too many of these," said of the current state of negotiations. “This is all Trump. It is all in his hands. No one is talking to Republicans or their offices. If the president says, ‘Yes I wanna do it,’ it gets 85 votes. If he doesn't, it doesn't.”

[...]

The hope among Senate offices involved in the discussions is that the White House will ultimately make clear what proposals Trump can and cannot support with respect to gun legislation and that that, in turn, will set the table for possible next steps, according to the source familiar with talks.

Hope never got anything done.

[S]o far, the president has signalled mainly that he is retreating from the idea that he can push an expanded background-checks bill through Congress. On Sunday, he told reporters that, “People don't realize we have very strong background checks right now,” before arguing that the issue with gun violence was a “big mental [health] problem.”

Yeah, he talked to the NRA folks.

In case there was any confusion, Trump added: “Look, I've had a great relationship with the [National Rifle Association], and I will always have a great relationship. I've been very good for the NRA.”

[...]

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has already said that Democrats won’t “settle” for gun action that is limited to red flag laws. On Monday, he called Trump’s “backtracks” on guns “heartbreaking” and called on McConnell to put universal background checks to a vote on the Senate floor immediately. There was no response from McConnell or Trump.

“Every reporter called me up and said this time feels different,” the Senate Democratic aide said. “I was like, am I missing something?”

A president.



Take it where you can get it, I guess.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



UPDATE 8/21: