The NRA got a private lunch with Trump where they got him to oppose raising the age to buy assault weapons, and the rest of the country got a scripted publicity stunt where Trump sat around a table with members of Congress and pretended to listen to their gun violence concerns.
While the White House put this on TV:
Trump is literally pushing gun policy based on how he feels about what he has seen on Fox News. pic.twitter.com/sQyuUzzWcR
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) February 28, 2018
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According to CNN, the NRA got:
NRA leadership directly appealed to POTUS to not raise age limit for buying certain firearms during lunch Sunday, Sr Admin official tells @ElizLanders. Adds NRA prefers WH pursue school safety programs.
— Kristen Holmes (@KristenhCNN) February 28, 2018
The NRA gets a private lunch. Everyone else gets reality TV from the White House
Trump has shown in the past that these White House publicity stunt meetings with members of Congress are worthless. If Congress does pass a bill, like universal expanded background checks, Trump will change his tune and veto the bill. Absolutely nothing that Trump says in front of the television cameras should be taken seriously. Trump will say whatever makes him popular in any room that he is speaking in, which is why he agrees with everything at these stage photo-ops with members of Congress present.
Trump isn’t going to support anything that the NRA hasn’t signed off on. After all, the NRA got a private lunch where they told the president exactly what he would do on gun violence. The rest of the country gets an eyeful of Trump pretending to cut a deal while acting like he is listening to what is being said in the room. The gimmick has gone stale. No one is buying the reality television president, especially with the NRA privately pulling his strings.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
