The NPR Politics Podcast - Federal Gun Restrictions Are Likely Doomed in the Senate

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

A mass shooting at a Texas elementary school has many Americans again asking what can be done about gun violence. But in the face of broad Republican opposition in the Senate, there's likely no path forward for new restrictions.Also, two Trump-endorsed candidates failed to unseat incumbent Republicans in Georgia's primary elections. That doesn't mean the GOP can discount Trump's influence. This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. It is 1.37 Eastern on Wednesday, May 25th. In Uvalde, Texas, at least 19 children are dead, along with two adults. All of the kids were in the same fourth grade classroom. It's another terrible moment in what feels like an endless, horrifying string of mass shootings in the United States, including the recent Buffalo shootings. Last night, immediately after he returned from Japan, President Biden responded. The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong. What in God's name do you need an assaulter for except to kill someone? Deer aren't running through the forest with Kevlar vests on for God's sake. It's just sick.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat who was in Newtown, Connecticut the day of the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, and has made tougher gun laws a central goal of his time in the Senate, was equally forceful from the Senate floor. What are we doing? Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands. What are we doing? There have been more mass shootings than days in the year.

Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in a classroom because they think they're going to be next. What are we doing? In Uvalde, the school district superintendent, Hal Harrell, was emotional as he talked about what happened. My heart was broken today. We're a small community. And we will need your prayers to get us through this.

A lot to talk about. We're going to talk about the politics of it and what is happening and what is not happening in Congress. So we've got Susan Davis, who covers Congress, and Mara Eliason, national political correspondent. Hey to both of you. Mara Eliason Hi there. Susan Davis Hey, Scott. Scott Horowitz Mara, I want to start with you. We have heard

this kind of rhetoric from a president before. We have heard this rhetoric from members of Congress before. I think we can all agree that mass murders are horrible. So why is nothing happening? Mara Eliason Nothing is happening because you need 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything. And there are not enough Republicans who would join the 50 Democrats to pass something. It doesn't really matter, I think, how many massacres we're going to have. And even though there is popular opinion consensus on some gun control measures, background checks, some kind of red flag laws, even some restrictions on assault weapons, they're not in Congress. And there's just not the votes. It's as simple as that. You've said many times in the past, and I was

thinking about it over the last day or so, that when Congress did nothing policy-wise after Sandy Hook, that was a crossing the Rubicon moment. That was a lasting choice in so many different ways. I think so. If you kill 20-odd elementary school kids and nothing happens, what is going to make you change your mind? Now, this was another Sandy Hook. And I would say that the polarization around guns, the polarization in general, has gotten much worse since then. So, yeah, I'm pretty pessimistic. You know, after Sandy Hook, there was a very sincere bipartisan effort to try to pass legislation that was pretty narrow.

It was just to toughen the existing background check system. And it very famously failed. It also failed, as I like to remind people, with the help of some conservative Democrats who represented red states. None of those Democrats are still in the Senate. Sandy Hook debate changed everything in Congress about the gun debate. There's this idea, this built-in view that nothing can be done. And I think that remains to this day. Chris Coons, he's a Democrat from Delaware, was asked just this morning if he thought that the shooting in Texas could move the needle. And he said, I want to quote him, quote, this is a bad day for anything even vaguely looking like hope or optimism around the legislative process. And I think that captures the political reality.

Well, Sue, the majority leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has some gun control measures on the calendar and they have support from at least Susan Collins. I guess those would be messaging bills. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this morning, it was kind of interesting. He has used Senate process to bring up two House passed bills affecting background checks that could be brought to the Senate floor. But he said he wasn't going to do it just to have another symbolic vote. There is some effort, I do want to be clear, in the Senate to maybe try to advance something. And when I say something, there's some renewed talk about expanding the existing background check system. It's always worth reminding people

that there is a background check system in place in this country, but there are some loopholes in it that there has been bipartisan support in some degree to make it tougher. And there's also renewed talk about red flag laws, which would make it easier for law enforcement or like a family member to take away guns from someone if they thought that could be a danger to the public or to themselves. We'll see. I think that there is some sincere interest to move it. But again, as Mara said, you know, they have these familiar procedural roadblocks in the Senate, and there isn't really evidence, at least today, that there are 10 Republican votes to move those. In these podcast conversations about legislation being blocked in the filibuster, we focus a lot

on the Democratic side. It's the party in power right now, even if it's an evenly divided Senate. But let's talk for a moment about the general Republican view among members of Congress on this topic, because it comes up a lot. Our colleague Kelsey Snell was in the hallways of Congress this morning and asked South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds about this. Why should voters have any confidence that Congress is protecting their children? What is Congress doing? Why should people? Well, it's not it's not a matter of Congress has tried for years to do different things. But in each particular case, if someone wants to violate a law, they're going to violate a law. So if you make a law and they violate the law, then you say that Congress didn't do anything, and yet it's already illegal to carry that gun in there. But it's different than saying Congress has done nothing because they've tried in the past to do so.

It's like this nihilism, right? There's no other way to put it. Like, well, if a law can be broken, what's the point? And it only seems to exist with this particular issue. Well, John Thune, who's in the leadership of the Republican Party in the Senate said, well, there's so many guns out there now anyway, and most of them are held by law abiding people. So what would be the point? And I think the proponents of gun control would say, wait a second, we're not talking about taking away guns from law abiding citizens. We're trying to make it harder for people with mental health issues or criminal intent to get a hold of weapons that can kill

a lot of people in a very short period of time. I also think broadly the Republican position has been that any type of gun law should be focused more on the state level and that the federal government shouldn't play as big a role. That was a point that Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, made today. He was governor of Florida when the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas happened. And Republicans in Florida did enact new state gun laws, including raising the purchasing age for certain weapons from 18 to 21. And he supported that. And he said, you know, if states want to do that, they should. So you've got deeply ingrained culture. You've got, of course, a key part of the Bill of Rights enshrining the right to own a gun. And yet we are in this worsening feedback loop situation right now where mass shooters study

and mirror other mass shooters and try to outdo them. I mean, the parallels between what happened yesterday and what happened at Sandy Hook are just deeply, deeply, deeply disturbing. And I think the takeaway from this segment is that there's not much sign that the political system is going to shake and change and really address any of this. So a tough conversation, but Sue, thanks for joining us to talk about it. Thanks, Scott. Mara, stick around and we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, you and I are going to talk about last night's primary results.

We are back. Mara's still here. And now we've also got Domenico Montanaro, our senior political editor and correspondent. Hey, Domenico. Hey, Scott. So topic shift, but big primaries last night, and we need to talk about them in Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. The story of the spring so far has been this weekly test of how much power Donald Trump still holds in the Republican Party. And for a while, the answer seemed like a lot.

Last night, very different takeaway. Yeah, you know, if you were to tell me that there were two incumbent Republicans that Trump really wanted to take out, want to oust from office, you'd be hard pressed to come up with two names that were more at the top of his list than incumbent Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. But both Kemp and Raffensperger won by huge margins last night. Huge margins. Huge. I mean, Kemp, you know, it's funny because Kemp won by 50 points, 5-0. And over David Perdue, a former senator who Trump handpicked to run, his entire premise of his campaign was Trump's election lie that the presidential election in Georgia was stolen from him, even though it wasn't,

of course. And, you know, Raffensperger was somebody who Trump tried to essentially shake down to find him votes, remember, he said in that notorious phone call that was leaked. And both were able to hold him off. Raffensperger won by almost 20 points. Mara, what did you make of this? Well, I think that if Trump was the 800-pound gorilla in the Republican Party before last night, I think now he's the 750-pound gorilla. I think this has not diminished his hold on the Republican Party in a major way, but it was a real black eye. And Trump cares a lot about his win-loss record.

That's one of the reasons that he endorsed so many Republicans who didn't have tough races or why he came in very late. But his aura has been punctured. And I think what you're seeing is more Republicans just incrementally feeling bolder to criticize him, to push back against him. And I think that's going to continue. Oh, wait. And you know what? We got to say, though, that there still is a preponderance of Republicans who won their primaries that are election deniers. We can't deny that. And Trump definitely succeeded in that. And also worth noting, you know, Hershel Walker won the Senate primary pretty easily. He's somebody who Trump also basically handpicked to run for Senate. But Domenico, you're right. This governor's primary was all about Trump's election lie and Kemp

blew Perdue out of the water. Yeah. And as Mara notes, we shouldn't exaggerate sort of Trump's waning influence, quote unquote. You know, he's still very popular within the Republican base, controls lots of levers of power within the party, including the Republican National Committee, lots of state party heads. And there's tons of candidates just wanting to be like Trump. And he's still far away the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024 if he wants it. But there were definitely some reasons why things seemed a little bit different in Georgia last night than they have been in some other places. And I outlined three in a story that I wrote. One night than they have been in some other places.

And I outlined three in a story that I wrote. One is the power of the incumbency. You know, I mean, when you have a brand, people know you. It's a lot more difficult to take someone out if someone's coming in from outside, even if they're as popular as Trump is generally with the base. Two is a sustained GOP push against Trump really hadn't been leveled in many other places, except what we saw in Georgia last night, where Kemp, Raffensperger, even the lieutenant governor in the state, you know, who wasn't on the ballot last night, Jeff Duncan, has created something he's calling GOP 2.0, even running ads against Trump. And, you know, finally, I would say that there is a degree of erosion in Trump's favorability.

And what I'm talking about with that, it's not that he's unpopular with Republicans. It's that his very favorable ratings have declined about 20 points since Election Day. And I think it really does. It does show you the farther away you get from power, the less your influence is as strong a hold on your base. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about two more races pretty quickly before we end the episode. One is in Texas,

one of the most closely watched congressional primaries between incumbent Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar. He's the last Democrat in the House who does not support abortion rights. Jessica Cisneros was running against him. Mara, what does that race look like today? Well, it's too close to call, and it was a test of progressives

against the establishment, not just because Cuellar does not support abortion rights, but because he had the support of most of the establishment Democrats in the House leadership. But it's also going to be a test if Cisneros wins, whether she can prevail in that district against a Republican. And many Democrats supported Cuellar because they thought he was the only one who could win in the fall. And then the Texas attorney general's race, incumbent Ken Paxton, has a wide range of very serious legal problems. He ran against George P. Bush, the land commissioner. Bush embraced Trump more than the rest of his family ever did. Trump still endorsed Paxton, and Bush lost handily. Domenico, is this it for the Bushes? Did we pour one out for the Bush dynasty here?

I think we have to in Texas. George P. Bush is the son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He was trounced in his bid for attorney general. He really even tried to show a degree of fealty, kissing the ring to Trump, trying to get Trump's endorsement. You know, I'll just hat tip to the Texas Tribune here that wrote that Bush's loss, quote, heralds a shift in the Texas Republican politics away from the pro-business establishment and toward a more populous, combative and harsh style of politics. Couldn't have written that better myself because that's where things look like they're headed. And that's quite the shift from when the elder Bush moved to Texas in 1948. All right, that is it for today. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.