Trump’s one-man ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine with the NRA

“These are great people,” Trump said of the NRA during a bipartisan meeting with members of Congress about gun violence at the White House on Wednesday. “These are great patriots. They love our country.”

But Trump left no doubt as to who he thinks is in charge. “I’m the biggest fan of the Second Amendment. Many of you are. I’m a big fan of the NRA,” he said. “But I had lunch with them — with [NRA leaders] Wayne [LaPierre] and Chris [Cox] and David [Lehman] — on Sunday and said, ‘It’s time.’ We got to stop this nonsense. It’s time.”

At one point, he said members of Congress — including Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., whose bipartisan background checks bill he was praising — fear the NRA.

“I said, ‘Fellas, we got to do something,’” Trump later added, telling lawmakers, “And they do have great power, I agree with that. They have great power over you people. They have less power over me. I don’t need it. What do I need?”

This echoes comments Trump made to governors earlier this week. “Don’t worry about the NRA, they’re on our side,” he said. “Half of you are so afraid of the NRA. There’s nothing to be afraid of. … And you know what? If they’re not with you, we have to fight them every once in a while, that’s OK. Sometimes we’re going to have to be very tough, and we’re going to have to fight ’em.”

It’s part of a delicate dance Trump is having with the gun rights group after the latest mass shooting — and a highly public campaign by friends and relatives of its 17 victims — has increased pressure for legislative action aimed at stopping such events in the future.

Trump is launching a charm offensive to try to bring the NRA along on new gun legislation while at the same time reserving the right move in a different direction. “There’s no bigger fan” of the NRA than he, the president told lawmakers. “But that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.”

Democrats tried to woo Trump too. “We will get 60 votes on a bill that looks like the Manchin-Toomey compromise on background checks, Mr. President, if you support it,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who added, “But, Mr. President, it’s going to have to be you that brings the Republicans to the table on this because, right now, the gun lobby would stop it in its tracks.”

“President Trump is showing great leadership on this issue by listening to various stakeholders and he wants to do something concrete and fact-based to protect school children,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “Because Donald Trump received the earliest presidential endorsement in NRA history, he can move the ball on this issue, but even he has his limits.”

The NRA supported Trump when vast swathes of the conservative movement were still skeptical, but his remarks about disarming high-risk gun owners first and practicing due process later may bust through those limits. “The NRA is also going to protect due process for innocent Americans, and that is an approach that we are going to hold to,” group spokeswoman and commentator Dana Loesch told Fox News, calling it “a foundational principle of this country.”

In the course of a meeting that flummoxed Republicans, Trump expressed support for banning bump stocks through executive action, universal background checks, as well as strengthening the existing system, raising the age for AR-15 purchases and even a vote on an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., banning assault weapons. He told House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., that concealed-carry reciprocity, an important issue for gun rights activists, was politically untenable.

Trump has turned on early supporters before — just ask beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“I wouldn’t want to be in the position of having elected a guy who turns around and takes up your enemy’s agenda,” said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, a group that often criticizes the NRA for being too tepid in support of the Second Amendment. “If everything talked about in that meeting was enacted, [Trump] would quickly surpass Barack Obama as the most anti-gun president in American history.”

Democrats nevertheless remember their White House meeting with Trump over immigration earlier this year, in which he appeared open to many of their policy proposals and willing to sign whatever Congress could pass, while also using some of his usual rhetoric on the issue. Trump subsequently opposed a proposal by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that strayed too far from his conservative campaign commitments and no deal was ever struck.

“Trump will toe the NRA line entirely — he will not deviate from their agenda,” said Robert Spitzer, professor of political science at State University of New York at Cortland. “With one exception, everything he has proposed, including administrative restrictions on bump stocks, improving background check record keeping, and giving teachers guns, has come from the NRA agenda/playbook. [There is] one thing he suggested support for — raising the purchase age for assault weapons to 21 – that is not NRA approved.”

“The other big point is that, for Trump, it’s not about ideology, but loyalty,” added Spitzer, the author of five books on gun policy including The Politics of Gun Control. “Up until recent years, he supported stronger gun laws. But the NRA threw in its lot with him early and fully, plus $30 million for his campaign. They cheer him lustily and loudly, and that’s what matters most to him.”

As with the immigration negotiations, Trump is torn between fidelity to his conservative campaign promises and his self-image as a consummate dealmaker who can solve problems that his predecessors — especially Obama — failed to resolve.

“You went through a lot of presidents and you didn’t get it done,” Trump said. “You have a different president. And I think, maybe, you have a different attitude, too. I think people want to get it done.”

This, combined with a loose grasp on certain policy details and a desire to project reasonableness in televised meetings, further complicates the talks once the camera is off.

“Contrary to the musings of the mainstream media, the battle over gun rights is not a traditional Republican versus Democrat issue, more like urban versus rural as evidenced by the 15 Senate Democrats and one independent (Sen. Angus King) who voted against the 2013 assault weapons ban,” O’Connell said. “The NRA’s true power is not in the amount of money it doles out to political campaigns but in its ability to move voters to the ballot box, with its core constituency being the 16 million conceal-carry permit holders around this nation.”

The success of Trump’s one-man “good cop, bad cop” routine with the NRA will depend in part on the loyalty of his base, which in 2016 included 62 percent of gun owners who voted in the presidential election.

“Ensuring the safety and security of our children is of the utmost importance, and we fully support the president’s proposals to keep our kids safe, strengthen background checks, and keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, without violating the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Erin Montgomery, communications director for the pro-Trump America First Policies.

If Trump does decide to partner with the Democrats instead of the gun groups who brought him to the dance in the first place, there is also the question of how willing they will be to compromise with him — as well as hand him a bipartisan legislative victory — in an election year.

“The question for elected Democrats is: Will the pursuit of perfection in their mind be the enemy of the good?” said O’Connell. “If this is done right modest changes should come about. Will everyone be satisfied? No, but President Trump will have moved the ball forward on an important public safety issue.”

“I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened — for the last 20 years, nothing has happened,” Trump mused at the end of his meeting with lawmakers. “So we’re going to get it done.”