Trump Floats Tying Immigration, ‘Strong’ Background Check Legislation Together

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 02: U.S. President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn before boarding Marine One and departing the White House August 02, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump is traveling to Bedminster, New Je... WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 02: U.S. President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn before boarding Marine One and departing the White House August 02, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump is traveling to Bedminster, New Jersey, to spend the weekend at his Trump National Golf Club. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Ahead of his expected address Monday on the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio over the weekend, President Trump suggested on Twitter that Congress develop bipartisan legislation that ties “strong background checks” for gun purchases with immigration reform.

The tweets come after Trump was criticized over the weekend for doing little to address the two separate shooting massacres that left 29 people dead. Trump surfaced briefly on Sunday to make spurious, unsubstantiated claims about the mental health of the shooters in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

There’s been no indication thus far that mental health was a factor in either of the shootings. While police are still investigating the motives in both cases, authorities are probing the El Paso massacre as a hate crime because the shooter is believed to have posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online before taking the lives of 20 people at a Walmart.

While many are pointing to President Trump’s own racist rhetoric for the rise in white supremacist violence in the U.S., Trump tweeted Monday morning that the media has a “big responsibility to life and safety in our country.”

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  1. You can just see the tRump brain working here… If we can keep more brown people out the number of mass shootings will have to go down… genius

  2. Trump suggested on Twitter that Congress develop bipartisan legislation that ties “strong background checks” for gun purchases with immigration reform.

    We’ll see how the Democrats respond.

  3. Sometimes he’s just so freaking lame.

  4. Oh goodie, he says, a chance to get that loose end squared away so I can campaign on it. The Art of the Deal with the Devil. Just staggering.

  5. Oh FFS this is bothsidesism at its worst. This has the hoofprints of Stephen Miller all over this: “let’s give them some kind of bs background check talk while we push policy in line with the shooters’ point of view, you know, ‘right ideas, wrong methods,’ ‘we need to understand the grievances of these troubled men,’ etc.”

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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