Inside the training, Trump must be returned to the weapon background check

Pat Toomey approached Chris Murphy in the Senate this week with an urgent warning: we are running out of time to convince President Donald Trump.

"The president is about to make up his mind and he is under a lot of pressure from the other side," Toomey told Murphy. "We have to go to the president and make our presentation before he has a decision-making meeting."

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Faced with growing opposition to their nascent efforts to flesh out background checks on arms sales, Murphy (D-Conn.), Toomey (R-Pa.) And their partner Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) have decided to call Trump, he said.

The three senators quickly telephoned the president, talking to them for 40 minutes and promising to strongly support any agreement they could make with him on background checks.

The trio's alliance covers the ideological spectrum – and could well bring home the 60 elusive voices needed for the first movement to reduce gun violence in decades.

The chances are slim that Trump and a Republican-controlled Senate are acting despite the NRA's strong resistance. But if the law on background checks becomes law, this unusual coalition will be the key.

An uncompromising Republican critic of Trump's trade policy and conservative doctrinaire on taxation, Toomey talks with the president more than once a week about gun reforms and texting and phone calls with Murphy.

A moderate and lonely Senate, Manchin suddenly returned to Trump's orbit after the president had done everything possible to oust him at the mid-point in 2018.

Then there's Murphy, a 46-year-old Liberal, who recently said the president was "behaving like a child" and was censuring himself every time Trump stopped using gun violence in his conversations.

"The President has said many things with which I strongly disagree. I tried my best to keep my tongue, "said Murphy about his recent conversation with Trump. "I have done my best to stay focused on finding a common ground on firearms."

Do not expect this band of three to get together the next time the Senate passes immigration, health, or economic laws. But they have become a rock-solid group pushing the President, the Conservatives and the Liberals to do something that has long seemed impossible, even as the number of deaths resulting from large-scale shootings is getting heavier and heavier. .

"This is a three-dimensional example of the politics that makes strange bedfellows," said Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Murphy's. "I can not imagine them finding common ground outside this space. But they are working hard to find it now. "

Toomey and Manchin developed the first version of the proposal in 2013, but their rapprochement with Trump marks the most serious attempt by Congress since their background checks bill failed under the opposition of the GOP in particular. half a dozen years. Trump White House has been meeting with Senate negotiators on Thursday night.

And while Murphy backed the Manchin-Toomey measure at the time, the senator representing Newtown has since asked for a much more comprehensive set of new gun regulations, describing himself as a "tough guy" on the subject.

The improbable trading team began to take shape during a phone call from the president to Toomey after the August shootout in Texas and Ohio.

"The president called me and he wanted to discuss what I thought we should do," Toomey said. "He did not say that bringing back Manchin-Toomey as such, but knowing my interest in this space, he called."

After a series of fragmented conversations between them and the president, senators approached Trump this week with a compelling message: if they and Trump can sign an agreement, Democratic and Republican leaders will be warned that a package may pass. According to them, uniting progressive president Murphy, conservative Toomey, centrist Manchin and the volatile president is the secret recipe the Senate needs to get 60 votes.

"You have Toomey on one side, you have Murphy on the other, me in the middle," said Manchin. "We are not going anywhere."

Although their colleagues wish well to the trio, expectations are low.

"I would not bet my house on it. If I bet on your house, it would be a "maybe". It's going to be tough, "said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)." I do not want to see people pulling something out of their holes. "

"I am skeptical. This president changes his mind every 15 minutes, "said Senate minority whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). "It would be nothing less than a political miracle."

Toomey, Manchin and Murphy are the main cast of Capitol Hill in what has become an all – cast cast that is trying to create a set of guns with President Mercurial. But Trump also receives contradictory opinions from White House officials, which complicates the debate.

The White House legislative director, Eric Ueland, a former senior official in the Senate, leads the lengthy and in-depth discussions. According to Murphy, Trump is aware that background checks bring together "many people from across the political spectrum".

Meaning. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) And Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) Work on a proposal that would provide grants to states to implement so-called red flag laws. Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz) wants to make domestic terrorism a separate federal crime. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) tackles straw purchases.

Collins is also working on background checks. But she also realizes the importance of the Murphy-Manchin-Toomey triumvirate.

"When you have too many people, it can be difficult," said Collins about the call with Trump, which she had already known. "It was better to have those who were running on the background check."

The expansion of background checks is the most ambitious response to the latest round of armed violence in Congress, which remains deeply controversial in the GOP. But some Republicans seem more open to the idea given the slowdown of the president, including Graham, a close ally of Trump who had previously opposed Manchin-Toomey.

"These are the most significant discussions I've seen on this issue for a long time," said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Who was retiring, who also opposed the development of background check.

But Isakson knows how difficult it can be to move the president and his own party on fundamental issues. Last year he had joined a small group of Republicans and most Democrats in the Senate to try to reach an agreement on immigration with the president, before seeing the White House reverse his plan.

Firearms can be even more difficult.

Democrats are in the middle of their presidential primaries and candidates like Beto O'Rourke proclaim their willingness to seize assault weapons through mandatory surrender programs. That got an icy answer to Toomey, who tweeted that the "rhetoric of the former Texas Congressman undermines and hurts bipartisan efforts".

Even with Toomey's boost and Trump's support, a number of Republicans will certainly rebel against any gun package. Senator Steve Daines (R-Mont.) Said: "I do not think gun control is the best solution."

Murphy, meanwhile, has the difficult task of maintaining his party.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Advocates passage of House bill on universal background checks, which Republicans oppose. If Murphy, Toomey, Manchin and Trump can come up with something, he'll be sure of that, and Democrats may be reluctant.

This is a reality that weighs on senators even as they say they are closer than ever to what would be a historic achievement.

"The problem is that Manchin-Toomey has to go back and forth at the same time," Murphy said. "I think Republicans want changes that would involve more conservatives. … But I do not think you can get Democratic votes for something that is fundamentally inferior to Manchin-Toomey. "