At a televised bipartisan summit at the White House Wednesday, Donald Trump demonstrated the potentially immense value of an outsider’s fresh perspective, in this case applied to gun-safety issues that had long ago hardened into Washington concrete. In his comments to Republican and Democratic leaders, he revealed himself as unbound by ideology and past commitment, willing to buck the National Rifle Association and eager to cut a major deal to move the country forward.
Unfortunately, Trump also demonstrated why that potential will never be realized, not by a man who doesn’t grasp basic details of the issues and can’t be bothered to learn them, who has the attention span and work ethic of a four-year-old and whose idea of “stepping up” as a leader is to tell everyone else in the room to “step up” so he can have something “beautiful” to sign.
On the surface, certainly, Trump’s performance Wednesday should have thrilled Democrats and those trying to bring some sanity and common sense to the nation’s gun laws.
For example, the man who stood before the NRA and pledged to stand with it against the “gungrabbers” urged congressional leaders to seize the guns of those suspected of mental illness, and to worry about due process later.
“Take the firearms first and then go to court,” Trump said. “A lot of times by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due-process procedures. I like taking the guns early.” Referring to the Parkland shooter, he also said that law enforcement officials “should have taken (his guns) anyway, whether they had the right or not.”
He proposed raising the minimum age for purchase of a weapon to 21, and went on to stiff-arm Republicans urging that he support a nationwide concealed-carry reciprocity bill. Instead, he suggested that an assault-weapons ban be incorporated into a comprehensive bill, at which point the 84-year-old Dianne Feinstein, sitting at Trump’s side, turned into a gleeful kid on Christmas morning.
Trump can say such things because he perceives himself to be immune to the NRA, and at this point that might be true. That sense was bolstered by the NRA’s muted response to Trump’s statements, merely calling them “bad policy.” If those same statements had come from Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, the NRA would have condemned them as the statements of a jack-booted tyrant out to disarm America.
The problem is that Republican House members and senators have no such protection from the NRA, and they’re the ones who will have to vote on such proposals, put their names behind them, and then face the NRA’s wrath once they get back home. Trump basically told them to do it anyway.
“Some of you people are petrified of the NRA,” Trump said. “You can’t be petrified. “
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told Trump that as president and leader of the GOP, he has the responsibility of getting the Republican votes needed for the proposals.
“If you come to Congress, if you come to Republicans and say, ‘We are going to do a Manchin-Toomey-like bill to get comprehensive background checks,’ it will pass,” Murphy said. “But if this meeting ends up with just, sort of, vague notions of future compromise, then nothing will happen.”
“I like that responsibility, Chris. I really do,” Trump replied. “I think it’s time. It’s time that a president stepped up, and we haven’t had them. And I’m talking Democrat and Republican presidents — they have not stepped up.”
“I’d rather have you come down on the strong side instead of the weak side,” he went on. “The weak side would be much easier. I’d rather have you come up with a strong, strong bill. And really strong on background checks.”
Nobody in Washington, with the exception of the president himself, believes that will happen. The opportunity is there, the ground has been prepared, the American public is eager for progress. But it is simply inconceivable that when the time comes, a president whose sole remaining support is the hardcore Republican base will be willing and able to defy that base.
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