The Daily - Senator Chris Murphy on the Bipartisan Gun Safety Deal

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

The Senate has reached a bipartisan deal that could lead to the most significant federal response to gun violence in decades.Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, was deeply involved in the negotiations. Today, he tells us how news of the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, left him with a feeling of desperation — and renewed determination to make progress.Guest: Senator Chris Murphy, who has spent the decade since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., trying to enact change on gun safety.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The agreement put forward by 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats would provide funding for states to enact “red flag” laws that allow the authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous.Though the deal is less than Democrats wanted, it is still seen as a significant step that could save lives.Americans in communities scarred by mass shootings acknowledged the proposal as progress but said it did not go far enough.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. This is The Daily. Democrats and Republicans doing what almost no one thought they could, reaching a deal on guns. The Senate has reached a bipartisan deal on gun safety that could put Congress on a path to the most significant federal response to gun violence in decades. There's going to be incentives for states to implement red flag laws that deny guns to people deemed a risk to themselves or others. There's also enhanced background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds in this country. There's funding for mental health, school safety funding, a provision addressing the

quote, boyfriend loophole on domestic violence, and another provision... Today, I spoke with a senator who's at the center of those negotiations, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, about how the deal was reached, how meaningful it actually is, and what it reveals about a new strategy for gun control.

about a new strategy for gun control. It's Tuesday, June 14th. Senator Murphy, hi. I think you're muted. There we go. All right. Thank you for taking the time with us. Thanks for having me. So I want to get to the deal that you and your Republican colleagues made over the past few weeks.

But first of all, I wanted to understand how this deal was reached and your role in it. You represent the state of Connecticut, which is where the U.S. first experienced a mass shooting at an elementary school. So I wanted to go back just a couple of weeks to May 24th. That was, of course, the day of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. And you ended up on the Senate floor a few minutes after it happened. And I wanted to talk about that speech. So can you describe what was going through your head? Well, I was actually presiding over the Senate. I was sitting in the vice president's chair on the dais when I learned that this was a shooting of scope similar to Sandy Hook. And I just first and foremost think about the parents in Sandy Hook

when a shooting like this happens. I mean, especially Uvalde, which was so tragically reminiscent of Sandy Hook. You have to realize that Sandy Hook never recovered and will never recover. And those parents are forced to relive that nightmare, right? When something like Uvalde happens, they look at those images of the parents waiting outside the school and they remember being in the firehouse as it emptied out and there was only 20 sets of parents left. I was there. I saw all of that. Obviously, I was just an interloper to their grief, but all of that comes flooding back. And I was both at the same time furious and absolutely heartbroken.

Mr. President. Senator from Connecticut. I came down from the dais and I went straight to my desk. Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands. I hadn't written anything out. I hadn't prepared anything. I just said what was in my head. Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in the classroom because they think they're going to be next. What are we doing? And listen, this is personal for

all of us, but I have a fourth grader. And at the time of the Sandy Hook shooting, I had a son who was just a year or two away from going into kindergarten and first grade. And so, you know, of course, when I process these tragedies and when I think about Sandy Hook, I think about my own kids. And I think about the conversations that my fourth grader was going to have the day after Uvalde with his classmates about what they would do and where they would hide and whether they would smear blood on their face like the little girl did in Uvalde. So for me, it was one of the few parents of young kids in the Senate. I also feel this more deeply and sort of think about those stories from Sandy Hook in a different way. In Sandy Hook Elementary School, after those kids came back into those classrooms, they had to adopt a practice in which there would be a safe word

that the kids would say if they started to get nightmares during the day, reliving stepping over their classmates' bodies as they tried to flee the school. In one classroom, that word was monkey. And over and over and over through the day, kids would stand up and yell monkey. And a teacher or a paraprofessional would have to go over to that kid,

take them out of the classroom, talk to them about what they had seen, work them through their issues. Sandy Hook will never, ever be the same. This community in Texas will never, ever be the same. Why? Why are we here? ever be the same. Why? Why are we here? I knew this was a moment to challenge my colleagues.

I knew this was a moment to make sure that there was accountability in the Senate. Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if your answer is that as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing? What are we doing? Why are you here? And I ended up making a plea to my Republican colleagues to come to the table. I'm here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues, find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely. I understand my Republican colleagues will not agree to everything that I may support, but there is a common denominator that we can find.

Heal the floor. Senator, as you said, you ended your speech that day by literally begging your colleagues. And that seemed to me like you were acknowledging that there was virtually no chance of anything really happening. It felt, and Senator, please don't take this the wrong way, but it felt desperate. I do feel desperate. I felt desperate for 10 years. And I've been involved in talks about changing our gun laws with multiple Republican senators. They've just never gone anywhere. Eventually, you know, we weren't able to find

common ground or the moment faded and the talks ended. And so I certainly was desperate and I was on the floor that day making no demands. Right. I mean, I was just saying, come to the table. Let's find the common denominator. I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And my hope is that the way that I framed it that day did create a safer space than maybe folks have thought existed in the past for Republicans to come to the table. No preconditions, no red lines. Let's just find the set of things that we can do together. And I hope that that desperation that I did have, and I still have today, is part of what convinced a few Republicans to talk.

So let's talk about that, Senator. What happened when you left the floor? Well, you know, the first thing I did was to text John Cornyn. Senator from Texas. Senator from Texas. And then to text the other senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. And just to say simply that I was thinking of them and that I knew what they were going through and what their communities were going through and that I was there to help. John and I, you know, have been colleagues and friends for a long time. He texted me back to say thanks and that he was heading to Uvalde. And over the course of the next 24 hours, we made a plan to meet when he returned to Washington. During that same amount of time, Kirsten Sinema expressed an interest to me in

getting involved. And she has a lot of very strong relationships with Republicans. I knew that she could really be a valuable addition to discussions. And by Thursday, we had a small meeting set up between Senator Sinema, myself, Senator Cornyn from Texas, and Senator Tillis from North Carolina. And it was in that meeting that we started to hammer out what could be that common denominator that I talked about on the Senate floor. And to my surprise, the list was longer than I might have thought was available. And so I walked away from that meeting on Thursday and then another meeting we had done with a bigger group of Republicans,

thinking to myself that there was clearly some opportunity that hadn't existed before. some opportunity that hadn't existed before. And Senator, why do you think that was? I mean, Republicans were willing to talk about changes to gun laws. Why this school? Why this shooting when they weren't after Sandy Hook? I don't know the answer to that question yet. I have some guesses.

You know, first of all, what I think I've learned in the last two weeks is that all of those failed negotiations were a predicate to this point. We were able to get Republicans more comfortable with talking and got them to get a little bit more outside their comfort zone so that when this moment arrived, there were more that were willing to sit down and have a talk that actually led to fruition. I think the second thing that happened was that everybody went home for the Memorial Day recess week. And normally that's a really risky thing when you have momentum towards legislation. Normally that's where something big and tough and difficult like this falls apart. But the opposite happened. People went back home and they heard from parents and kids.

They heard from gun owners, do something. This time you can't do nothing. And so by the time that week was done, I think the commitment to do something was cemented. Not because anything had fundamentally changed for these members, but that their constituents, their voters had told them that this time had to be different. constituents, their voters had told them that this time had to be different. So that's really interesting. The Republicans are hearing from their constituents that they wanted some kind of gun control done. Hearing the same things that we were hearing. And listen, to be clear, John Cornyn and Tom Tillis were explicit about their bottom lines. They told me, you know, I'm willing to talk about a set of things that do not infringe on Second Amendment

rights. We need to spend a lot of money on mental health, because even though that I might not think this is primarily a mental health problem, many Republicans do. And they said that if you want to get a bill done, you've got to put a big mental health investment in. Listen, I think Senator Cornyn and Senator Tillis were emotionally moved by what happened. I think that's a big part of the reason that they were at the table. But I think the reason the talks kept going is that so many Republicans and Democrats were hearing the same thing back home. Okay, so given all of that, heading into these talks, what was your strategy? I mean, knowing that many, many previous attempts have failed, including, of course, the efforts at gun safety after Sandy Hook in 2013.

I think the lessons I learned were, you know, one, to set expectations realistically. And so from the very beginning, I was public in saying, though I wasn't going to support anything that didn't save lives, I was only going to support something meaningful, I was not going to demand that the bill include something like a ban on assault weapons. And so it was important for me to communicate to, you know, both the public and the Republicans that I was willing to be part of a compromise. And I think that was important to sort of keep folks at the table. The second thing was to just be creative, finding that common ground to sort of cast a wide net.

And so we started with a lot of potential changes and we ended up with five. But that's five more than would have been possible a year ago. And I think by continuing to be thoughtful about the different places that we could find common ground, instead of just sitting there and arguing the entire time about 18 to 21 year olds or assault weapons bans, we were able to find something that could get 60 votes. So it sounds like from the beginning, you're very openly saying to your Republican colleagues, what are you willing to do? Put everything you can get behind in a basket. And it might be a little skimpy, but that's your starting point. Right. And I think I would argue we end up with something that's not skimpy.

But we admit at the outset that we're willing to do something that is much less than the perfect and then be willing to compromise. Obviously, the easiest thing to do would have been to just ban 18 to 20 year olds from buying assault weapons. That's where the public is. We were close to 60 votes on that, but we counted heads and we realized we couldn't get there. So we could have just given up. We didn't. We worked out a compromise on that issue that will, you know, make our country safer. So again, continuing to sort of work these compromises inside that room was what got us there. Why was the assault weapons ban off the table? Why did you not have the votes for that? You know, I'm probably not the person to

make the argument for my colleagues as to why they oppose it. The truth of the matter is, we don't even have unanimity in the Democratic caucus on an assault weapons ban, and we likely only have one or two if that votes on the Republican side. So we knew pretty quickly that if we were going to argue about that, it was for the time being a path to nowhere because we likely don't have 50 votes for that, never mind 60 votes. But Senator, you're there in the negotiations with them. I mean, how do you understand the Republican resistance to a law like this? Like, what do they say to you in private about why they can't get behind this? Because we know in the 1990s, of course, Republicans were able to support such a ban. Well, the key to successful negotiations is to not tell you what

they say in private. Oh, no. But, you know, what has changed over the last 20 years is that the AR-15 went from a novelty weapon to the best selling gun or one of the best selling guns in the country. And with so many more of those weapons in public circulation for many Republicans, it just makes it much harder to support a ban. And whether we like it or not, for big swaths of the Republican electorate, the connection to that weapon is cultural. government would sort of take away from them the ability to get access to a weapon that, you know, has been very much sort of wrapped up in their identity is scary to them and thus for Republicans, a no-go area. So you're saying that members are afraid their constituents are attached enough to this particular weapon that it's just impossible for them to support a bill like that? Like they're afraid they to support a bill like that. Like, they're afraid they'll be voted out of office. Well, and in a Republican primary, I mean,

I don't think that there's a lot of fear that this is necessarily a general election issue. But my sense is that, you know, many Republicans look at things like an assault weapons ban and believe that it will cost them votes in a primary. But listen, this is the broader mythology about gun laws, which is that if you vote for them, you are going to lose politically. That is not true. I mean, the mythology all dates to the 1994 election. President Clinton, after that election,

made a statement to suggest that it was the assault weapons ban that led to the losses in the 1994 midterms. That is not actually the story of the 1994 midterms. The assault weapons ban was wildly popular at the time. It was supported by President Reagan. It got lots of Republican votes. The 1994 landslide for Republicans

was much more about a healthcare bill and a president that at the time was very unpopular. But that story of the 1994 election and the risk you take by voting for things like an assault weapons ban, it lasted for, you know, 28 years up until this moment. And what we are going to do if we pass this bill is puncture a hole in that mythology.

We are going to show that Republicans who support this bill, despite the fact that, you know, the right wing is going to oppose it, will actually get more support than they lose. And so why I think getting this done is so critical is not just because the provisions will save lives, but also because by showing Republicans that the political sky does not fall when you vote for common sense gun safety measures. We will actually make it much more possible that we'll be able to pass further measures down the line. You have to get that first step done. You have to prove that theory of political harm

wrong in order to be able to do anything else. We'll be right back. Okay, so tell me what the Republicans in the Senate, and so far you have about 10, tell me what they were willing to agree to. You know, first and foremost, we wanted to get agreement on these red flag laws. And can you define those for me, Senator? So these are state laws that give law enforcement and courts the ability to temporarily take firearms away from individuals who are in crisis, individuals who are making threats of harm to themselves or to others. Republican states have passed these laws

and Democratic states. Our legislation will spend hundreds of millions of dollars helping states pass these laws and implement them. That's critical. That will save lives. I mean, that is effectively not a federal red flag law, right? It's money that would effectively encourage states to pass them. It's funding. And listen, I don't believe we should pass a federal red flag law because that would be enforceable by the federal courts. That's just unworkable. You can't have parents and local law enforcement having to go to the federal court system to get a temporary order taking guns away. That has to be a state law that has to be administered by

state courts. So the best thing we can do is to incentivize states to pass these. And these red flag laws can be really political. A lot of states haven't passed them because they get hung up in arguments between Republicans and Democrats. And my belief is that by depoliticizing the issue of red flags, by bringing a ton of Republicans to support them at the federal level, we will actually provide a political incentive for many states that haven't passed them to pass them. The money and the depolitization of the issue, I think, is going to prompt a lot of states to move forward with red flag laws. Senator, what other big breakthroughs would you point to in this agreement? breakthroughs would you point to in this agreement? Well, a late breakthrough in the talks was around a new federal criminal statute for gun trafficking and straw purchasing. Right now, the flow of

illegal guns moves from states with loose gun laws to states with tougher gun laws. So if you look at crime guns in New York City, they're not bought in New York State. They're bought in South Carolina or Georgia, places where they don't have to go through a background check online or at a gun store. They buy a mess load of weapons and then they bring them up to New York and sell them. There is no effective federal statute prohibiting that scheme. This bill would include a federal prohibition on gun trafficking. Further, there's no statute federally against straw purchasing. So what happens a lot in a place like Connecticut, where you have universal background checks, is someone who's prohibited from buying a gun, someone who's got a felony record, sends somebody else in to

buy the gun for them. That straw purchase is right now virtually unenforceable as a federal crime. Our bill would make it a federal crime and would dramatically elevate the penalties. Got it. We weren't able to get Republicans to agree to raise the age on the purchase of assault weapons, but we have put into place and will put into place an enhanced background check for 18 to 20-year-old purchasers that will actually prohibit them from getting a gun immediately. It'll take a couple days. That cooling off period will be important for people that are in crisis like the Uvalde shooter.

And that more comprehensive background check will allow us to just make absolutely sure that this young person is in a responsible position to own that weapon. That's a difference maker. But, Senator, on the other hand, as you know, some of your Democratic colleagues, especially in the House, are saying that this is pretty weak tea, that you gave Republicans too much power in this process, and that you should not be agreeing to something this narrow, because Republicans will just say they did something and will not come back to the issue, that this is it. I mean, you obviously take a different view of that. But for those who think this deal is a mistake, can you explain what about this deal makes it worth doing? Well, first and foremost, this deal is going to save lives.

It will not end the epidemic of gun violence in this nation. But why would we forego a possibility to save not one life, but thousands of lives? I mean, I think this bill is not an assault weapons ban. I get that. But these are not window dressing changes to our nation's gun laws. There's no doubt that red flag statutes and crackdowns on gun traffickers and new background checks on purchases under 21 will save tons of lives. So I think that we can make the case that this is not

merely incremental change, that yes, we had to find common ground with Republicans, but we found common ground on a set of changes that actually will make a difference. But second, what I know is that no great social change movement in this country got everything they wanted in the first bill they passed. Look at the marriage equality movement. The first thing that happened in the marriage equality movement was just the simple right of gay couples to be able to adopt. Now, folks could have said, that's not gay marriage. We're not supporting that. We're not supporting anything until we get everything. But once that change passed, it made other changes possible. It all of a sudden convinced opponents that there was political benefit to coming to the table and supporting more rights

for gay couples. And it got us to the point eventually where we were able to pass marriage equality laws all around the country and get a constitutional change. I just know that if you study great social change movements, making the first change, right, breaking the logjam is often what allows you, is almost universally what allows you to make all the other changes. And I think that this bill in and of itself is worth supporting. If we never passed another bill, we should pass this bill because it will save lives. But that's not how this is going to work. This will allow us to build bigger coalitions, to get more Republicans willing to support changes in the future. Interesting.

So in some ways, you see the gun safety movement like the marriage equality movement. I mean, can I guarantee that's going to happen here? No. That's why I argue, even if you don't believe that this is a pathway to future legislative success, you should still vote for it because it's going to make our country safer. But I do think that this is the beginning, not the end. I'm confident of that. that, almost by definition, you're saying this has to be incremental to avoid scaring off Republicans, because this is about cultural change and it's slow. Well, I would also, you know, encourage folks that are saying we shouldn't pass this because it's not enough to just go talk to parents out there, to just go talk to the folks I did last weekend in Connecticut. I didn't meet anybody over the weekend who told me, don't pass anything until you get everything. I mean, there is a

palpable anxiety out there in this country about the safety of our kids, about the safety of our public spaces. And Americans want us to show progress. They want democracy to be able to sort of prove that it can respond at this moment. So I get it that there are advocates and folks online who say, just keep the pressure on Republicans. Don't agree to anything until you've broken them. I just don't think that that's how democracy should work. And I'm sure that that's not what the people I represent want.

The people that I represent want us to make progress. Senator, do you think that these measures you all have agreed to would have stopped the Uvalde shooter or the Sandy Hook shooter? I think there's a possibility that these changes could have made a difference in Uvalde. Of course, I can't be sure of that. changes could have made a difference in Uvalde. Of course, I can't be sure of that. But if this bill leads to states passing red flag laws, a good red flag law could have made a difference in Texas. This young man showed all sorts of warning signs that could have triggered a red flag process. You can never know for sure. But I think that, you know, we've designed a law that specifically with respect to Uvalde might have

made the difference. Senator, you're speaking to me from Connecticut, your home state, right? Yep. And you've been there, I believe, since the deal was announced. I'm wondering if you've talked to any of the Sandy Hook parents over the past couple of days. I mean, I remember some of those parents were in the Senate gallery in 2013 when that package of gun safety laws failed, and some of them were very angry. What do they think about this deal? What are they telling you? Well, you know, the first thing to say is that there's no common opinion of anything amongst 20 sets of parents, but many of those parents are close friends. Many of the sons and daughters of the teachers who died that day are close friends. So of course, when we reached this deal late on Saturday night, some of my first calls and texts

and emails were to those parents and sons and daughters. So I think they're frustrated that it took 10 years, right? I think they're continually heartbroken that it wasn't their tragedy that led to immediate change. But to a person, they are incredibly grateful that this country is finally waking up to what's happening. And I know that we didn't fix this problem and that if we pass this bill, we won't fix the epidemic of mass shootings, but that the log jam is breaking, right? The 30 years of inaction is ending.

I just, you know, I wish this happened 10 years ago. I do. And I'm sorry that it wasn't the shooting in Sandy Hook that inspired my colleagues to change. But I've learned in the last 10 years that that's not how politics works. There's very few epiphanies. There's very few 180 degree turns that a big place like Washington makes. It often is a slog over years, sometimes decades to make change happen. And this to me is a seminal moment where that turn is

happening. And my belief over the weekend, talking to a lot of the families in Connecticut, is that that really matters to them. And Senator, what happens if this fails? What you have in hand is an agreement on a framework, right? And 10 Republican senators have signed on to it. But there's a long history, of course, of framework deals falling apart as they turn into actual language of a law. If this too goes down, what will you do? Two weeks ago, when these negotiations began, I was preparing for failure. I was emotionally and psychologically preparing myself and the families for failure. I'm not preparing for failure anymore.

I believe that we are going to pass this bill. And I believe that because we've never come this far. We've never had this big a coalition. We've never had a movement as strong as we do today. I am no longer preparing for failure as I have every single time I've entered into negotiations like this over the last 10 years. I am now preparing to pass this bill. So maybe I'm unrealistic. Maybe I should understand how difficult this is. But I've crossed the Rubicon. We're getting this done. And what does that feel like? I mean, in some ways,

this was an issue that was thrust upon you, right? I mean, Sandy Hook happened right after you were elected U.S. Senator. And Sandy Hook was your constituency as U.S. Congressman. It's this issue that sort of found you, but it's brought you so much failure. So how are you feeling right now? Yeah, but I mean, my failure on this issue is inconsequential compared to the loss of the families and the failure of the system to stand up for them and their kids' safety. So I just wake up every day feeling so lucky that my kids are with me in this fight. I hope this bill passes, but there's still so much more to do. You know, my life was changed by what happened in Sandy Hook.

But even if this bill passes, it doesn't stop the fact that I'm going to just continue to order my life in a way that presses for more change. Senator Murphy, thank you. Thank you. On Monday, the Times reported that it was unclear exactly when the Senate would pass the proposed legislation. The package would still need to pass the House. We'll be right back. the causes of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. A committee of lawmakers played video testimony from some of Donald Trump's closest associates, including former Attorney General William Barr. The associates said they objected when Mr. Trump claimed he was the rightful winner of

the 2020 election. I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, he's become detached from reality. Mr. Barr said in his testimony that when he told Trump, quote, how crazy some of these allegations were, he said Trump did not seem interested in what was actually true. There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were. Committee members said Trump used claims of election fraud to get his supporters to donate to a fund that they believed would help overturn the results.

Throughout the committee's investigation, we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for. But a committee investigator said there was no evidence that the $100 million that supporters donated was ever used for that purpose. So not only was there the big lie, there was the big ripoff. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Stella Tan, and Will Reed. It was edited by Rachel Quester, Paige Cowett,

and Michael Benoit. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Brad Fisher. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The Times.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.