Guns and 2024: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley promote gun rights at NRA meeting
Donald Trump and other Republican presidential hopefuls pledged their fealty to gun owners’ rights during a Friday convention of the National Rifle Association.
While mass killings in Nashville and Louisville put more political pressure on Republicans to support some kind of gun control, the Republicans told the powerful gun lobby that the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.
“This is not a gun problem, this is a mental health problem, this is a social problem, this is a cultural problem, this is a spiritual problem,” Trump said during a candidate forum sponsored by the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.
The National Rifle Association held its convention in Indianapolis within two weeks of two more mass shootings, one at a school in Nashville and the other at a bank in Louisville.
Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
The GOP candidates visited the NRA in very different political positions. Trump is dealing with his recent indictment, while prospective rivals like Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley are looking for traction in the still-evolving 2024 Republican presidential race.
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Trump’s legal issues
Seeking legal as well as political support, Trump told NRA delegates he is being investigated by the same kind of people who want to confiscate guns.
backed NRA-backed gun policies, and credited the group with giving him a huge political boost during his first presidential campaign in 2016.pleading not guilty in New York City to charges of falsifying business records in order to cover up hush money payments and campaign finance violations.a deposition in a fraud lawsuit filed against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump attorney Christopher Kise said Trump ran a successful business and eventually “everyone will scoff at the notion any fraud took place.”
During Friday’s speech, Trump reminded the gun owners that James filed a 2020 lawsuit against the NRA.
DeSantis on the verge
DeSantis, who also made campaign-like appearances in Virginia and New Hampshire on Friday, spoke to the NRA via video with a 3-minute speech focused on the subject at hand.
Citing his record as governor of Florida, DeSantis said “we’ve gone on offense to expand individual gun rights.”
DeSantis is expected to announce a 2024 candidacy after the Florida Legislature adjourns in May. The session has featured passage of a number of DeSantis-backed measures that could well surface in a presidential campaign.
the Second Amendment, Haley said she is “a concealed weapons permit holder myself” and that her husband is a hunter.
“You’ve always got a partner in me,” Haley told NRA delegates.
Haley did not mention two other Republicans who have dominated her campaign of late: Trump and DeSantis, both of whom enjoy leads over her in early polling.
In a memo to donors, the Haley campaign denounced Trump’s indictment as “outrageous prosecutorial abuse,” while also suggesting it would be a major distraction for him.
testify soon to a grand jury about his dealings with Trump in and around the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence has said Trump was wrong to demand that he throw out electoral votes favorable to Biden, but he has otherwise defended Trump amid the many investigations of the ex-president.
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Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, spoke by video and stressed his congressional record against gun control supporters who want to leave Americans “unsafe” and “unarmed.”
Scott announced just this week that he has formed an exploratory committee, a major step toward a possible 2024 presidential candidacy.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman who built a brand by opposing so-called “woke” social policies, told the NRA that a “mental health epidemic” is the biggest reason for mass shootings.
Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, said he would also defend the Second Amendment and called for better security in schools.
In past weeks, Hutchinson has called on Trump to suspend his campaign because of the indictment. He did not mention Trump by name during his NRA appearance, but did suggest that the Republicans should not re-nominate the former president by saying “we don’t need a rerun of 2020.”
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
In addition to the NRA, Trump, Pence, and perhaps others are expected to address a closed-door Republican donor retreat in Nashville, Tennessee, the city that was the site of the shooting that killed three children and three adult staff members at a Christian school.
Nashville is also the city where Republican members of the state Legislature expelled two Democrats for disrupting a meeting to protest the lack of action on gun control. The two members have since been re-appointed.