Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dropped the decision about what gun reform measures the Senate would consider into President Trump’s lap on Tuesday.
The Kentucky Republican said having Trump’s support on any gun measure is important for getting it passed in the chamber following a number of mass shootings last month in Texas and Ohio.
“If the president is in favor of a number of things that he has discussed openly and publicly, and I know that if we pass it it’ll become law, I’ll put it on the floor,” McConnell said during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.
“I said several weeks ago that if the president took a position on a bill so that we knew we would actually be making a law and not just having serial votes, I’d be happy to put it on the floor,” he continued.
McConnell said the Trump administration is “in the process of studying” what they would support and “I expect to get an answer to that next week.”
McConnell took heat last month following the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, for not canceling the Senate’s summer recess to take up a background check bill already passed by Democrats in the House.
The death toll from the month’s mass shootings tragically increased Saturday after seven people were killed in Odessa and Midland, Texas.
Trump after the first shootings initially signaled that he was all in on strengthening background check measures but then backed off and began putting the focus on mental illness.
“You go into buy a gun, you have to sign up,” the president said on Aug. 18 after speaking to NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre. “There are a lot of background checks that have been approved over the years. So, I’ll have to see what it is, but Congress is meeting bipartisan. A lot of people want to see what happens. But just remember this, big mental problem, and we do have a lot of background checks right now.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he will actively advocate for a background check bill.
“Mitch McConnell must drop his one-man blockade of enormously popular – and needed – universal background check legislation from being brought to the Senate floor,” said his spokesman Angelo Roefaro.
