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President Trump assured Thursday Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat from West Virginia, that he was still considering legislating to include a background check on firearms buyers. White House aides said they had poll data showing that gun control posed a political problem for the president, according to two people informed of the meeting.
In the White House, the issue of new gun control measures has been largely theoretical. Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and Majority Leader, warned that it will be the President who will have to pressure his party to act. To help guide Trump's decision-making, White House assistants commissioned a poll to determine his supporters' position on various measures.
For his part, the president sent conflicting signals about his plans, according to his interlocutors, and the issue took on a new urgency after a shootout in West Texas over the weekend.
A few days after consecutive shooting in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio in early August, Trump said he wanted to continue what he described as a "very useful background check". But this resolution seemed to subside in the face of the concerns of the National Rifle Association and some of its closest advisers and family members, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. He had adopted since the 2016 campaign, and later became more focused on mental health issues and treatment deficiencies.
And, with the suspension of Senate business in August, any impetus behind a major bill seemed to be broken.
Messrs. Trump and Manchin met for about 30 minutes Thursday at the White House after the president handed the medal of freedom to Jerry West, former NB President. star. CNN first reported that the meeting had taken place.
Trump's advisers were present for the meeting and the president told Manchin that a bill on background checks that the senator had asked a Republican counterpart, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, was always on the table, according to informed people of the discussion.
According to interviewees at the meeting, poll data, said White House assistants, said the question would not help the president with his fan base,
Those familiar with the meeting stated that a number of options for firearms measures had been discussed. But those who are aware of the meeting said that the most likely of the president's measures was a menu of small items, such as a thinner version of a bill verifying the antecedents and laws of the "red flag" , which allow the authorities to temporarily confiscate the firearms of those found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or to others.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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