Willam: While uvalde,texas
grieves, Washington is returning
to its familiar debate over
guns, and whether anything can
be done in congress that could
prevent mass shootings.
Joining me to assess what can
and cannot be done in this
moment are:
Amy Walter of the cook political
report with Amy Walter.
And Tamara Keith of n-p-r.
Great to have you both here on
memorial day.
To you first come up president
Biden was in uvalde yesterday
and he heard from many residents
who said please do something.
What does the president have the
ability to do with regard to gun
control?
Tamara: With regards to his
executive power, the power of
the president to issue an
executive order, the president
has emphasized the limits of
that power.
Just today, he said he can't ban
certain guns or expand
background checks with his pen.
That is true and there are some
of the gun safety community who
have praised what he has done so
far.
In fact, president Biden has
done a lot through executive
action throughout his
administration on guns.
I spoke to a top white house
official about this late last
week who said they have not been
waiting for a mass shooting to
happen to take these actions,
but the person argues their
options are limited because of
that.
However, there are people in the
gun safety community who say
there is a lot the president
could still do.
There'a lot of executive tion that could happen, including issuing a executive
order that would call for the
justice department to define
what it means to be engaged in
the business of selling guns,
which could potentially expand
the number of gun sellers
required to perform background
checks in order to sell those
weapons.
Willam: Because if you are not a
federally licensed dealer, you
are not obligated to run those
checks.
Senator Chris Murphy, who we all
remember seeing imploring his
senate colleagues to engage on
this issue after this last
massacre is now having these
meetings with GOP senators and
has been suggesting there might
be some progress there.
Is it your sense this massacre
moved enough Republican senators
to actually act?
Tamara: Even senator Murphy's
said at one point that I have
Charlie with the football on
this issue, so he's been coming
at it with a certain degree of
skepticism.
Part of the challenge we have
right now is this debate is,
like so many things in politics,
it is all or none.
When you look at the polling
data, most Americans are
somewhere in the middle and
accept all kinds of compromises,
but we don't have compromise as
an incentive in Washington
anymore.
When I look back to the last
time we really got gun
legislation done, it wasn't just
that you had Republicans
supporting something, you also
had Democrats voting against it.
In 1994, you had 46 Republicans
voting for the assault weapons
ban and 64 Democrats voting
against it unthinkable.
It shows the importance of
diversity of the caucuses, that
Democrats had a lot of rural
members, Republicans had a lot
of suburban members, that's how
you get bipartisan compromise
because each one of these groups
had members where their
constituencies were strong
enough to push them to do one
thing or the other.
Now the two parties are
homogenous.
One side is almost entirely
rural and small-town of the
other party, Democrats are more
suburban and urban, so on this
issue, there is no one within
those parties that can bring
sort of a compromise possibility
to the table.
Willam: The literal definition
of polarization.
Senator Murphy has said if these
talks with Republican senators
does not pan out, that Democrats
would forward a bill of the
reforms they would like to see
done just to get a vote and get
everybody on the record.
Politically speaking, what is
the utility of that?
Does that really help to have a
symbolic vote?
Tamara: As Amy said, a number of
these measures have widespread
support, have overwhelming
support among the American
public.
Something like expanding
background checks or --
william: Raising the age limit.
Tamara: Moving the age limit to
do one for all types of weapons.
Preventing people involved in
mastic violence from obtaining
weapons.
There are a number of measures
that are widely supported.
Democrats see value in getting
on the record.
Chris Murphy is someone who is
arguing that Democrats need to
not be afraid of this issue,
that they need to campaign on
it.
He argues in the 18 they did
campaign on this issue and they
did pretty well in 2018.
I don't know if there is a
causal relationship as he says
there is, but there is a divide
among Democrats about whether
you embrace gun safety as an
issue or hide from it.
I would say numerous people have
told me the difference between
now, this terrible mass shooting
and sandy hook's since then, a
huge lobby, huge advocacy, army
has built up of people who want
gun safety measures that simply
did not exist in an organized
fashion before that.
It is the gun safety response to
the NRA and it's much more
organized than it was in the
Willam: I want to shift across
the country to Wyoming.
We saw president trump out in
Wyoming recently coming off a
pretty bad defeat of his
election denier candidates in
Georgia.
Two of them went down quite
seriously.
President trump is out in
Wyoming stumping for anyone who
will take down Liz Cheney.
Does the president's defeat in
Georgia lessen the impact of his
endorsement and stamp of
approval?
Amy: I vaguely have to judge
this on all kinds of different
measures.
On the one hand, of Republicans
that voted to impeach the
president, there are 10 of them,
Liz Cheney is one of them.
She has a tough road to come
back to Washington.
This is the most Republican
state, give Donald Trump his
biggest margin in the 2020
election, but those folks, many
of them are coming back because
they decided to retire, they've
likely seen the writing on the
wall.
So he is going to have been
responsible for purging a good
60%, 70% or more who voted to
impeach him out of congress.
On that measure, it's a success.
However, what we are seeing like
in Georgia is just giving
somebody your endorsement and
asking that endorsement to play
the role of retribution for his
own loss, right, it was all
about him and how he was wronged
, that's not going very far.
What other Republicans who are
looking at 2024 C is maybe this
is an opportunity to go after
Donald Trump.
He's spent so much time thinking
about the past, not the future.
There are Monday of Republicans
watching these wins and losses
saying maybe he's not so
invincible in 24 if he runs.
Willam: Very quickly, do you
think Donald Trump is equally
sought out as someone to stump
for my campaign, please, Mr.
Former president?
Tamara: He still carries a lot
of weight with his base.
Just look at how may people
showed up in Wyoming for that
rally, including people who
drove from all over the country
to see him, pretty much.
Willam: Tamera Keith, Amy