White House: Trump made no policy promises in closed-door NRA meeting

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with bipartisan members of Congress on school and community safety. Republicans spent the day Thursday struggling to respond to a set of vague instructions Trump laid out during a televised meeting at the White House.

Before Trump stunned the room, Feinstein had been talking about proposals for an assault weapons ban – a conversation-ender for most Republicans.

He said: “NEW: President Trump to meet with video game industry executives next week as part of ongoing debate over school safety”.

Chris Cox, the executive director of the National Rifle Association (NRA), says that President Trump does not “want gun control”.

“I like taking the guns early”, the president said.

While today’s meeting made for great TV, the gun control policies discussed would make bad policy that wouldn’t keep our children safer.

Trump and legislators seem resigned to the fact that this time – with the nation’s youth leading the charge, as concerned parents look on – there might be no turning back.

He suggested raising the age to 21 for anyone seeking to buy a semiautomatic weapon, something the NRA – and in truth most Republican legislators – have steadfastly opposed.

Trump had also on Wednesday appeared to endorse aggressive measures to confiscate guns from risky people.

She reiterated the president’s support for the Cornyn-Murphy bill that had the NRA’s approval. “Universal means something different to a lot of people”.

The concealed carry measure is the gun lobby’s top legislative priority. “I’m hoping there’s a way forward”, McConnell said. Lawmakers and the Trump administration have so far been unable to strike a deal on an immigration package.

But after Trump’s pronouncements this week, that legislation hardly mattered. They are seeking a more comprehensive expansion of background checks.

Of course Trump has been here before, seemingly bucking his own party and power supporters.

The confessed gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, legally obtained the AR-15 rifle allegedly used in the attack that left 17 students and faculty dead and more than a dozen others wounded. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that his bipartisan background check bill didn’t raise the age for weapons purchases, Trump said that was “because you’re afraid of the NRA, right?” The measure, from Sens. Some of you people are petrified of the NRA.

The subtext to the uncertainty around the White House policy rollout is that Trump was so all over the place on Wednesday that it made it impossible for the White House staff to come up with specific proposals that would comport with what he had said during the meeting and what he had previously proposed. “He wants to be helpful”, Toomey told The Associated Press.

“It would be so lovely to have one bill”, Trump told lawmakers at the White House.

The lawmakers in attendance were both flummoxed and pleased by Mr. Trump’s unpredictability. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Trump. The organization, which spent more than $30 million in support of his campaign, was one of the few mainstream groups to endorse Trump. “But it’s our job to write the legislation and he either vetoes it or he signs it”.

The NRA opposed the Toomey-Manchin background check bill, and when Toomey faced a hard re-election in 2016, the powerful gun-rights group downgraded the Pennsylvanian’s “A” rating to a “C”. Shannon Watts, the Founder of MomsDemand Action for Gun Sense In America, which was created after the Sandy Hook shooting, said on Twitter.