President Biden on Tuesday pledged to meet with lawmakers about enacting gun legislation in response to recent mass shootings.
“I will meet with the Congress on guns, I promise you,” Biden told reporters during a meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Oval Office.
Biden did not say with whom specifically he would meet or when. Lawmakers are currently on recess and scheduled to return to Washington, D.C., during the first full week of June.
The president has faced pressure from gun advocates to get more involved in the congressional talks about gun reform, as proponents of stricter gun laws grow frustrated with the lack of action on Capitol Hill.
Currently, Senate Democrats and Republicans are meeting on potential bipartisan legislation. However, there is a healthy dose of skepticism in Washington as to whether the talks will ultimately bear fruit.
Biden acknowledged on Monday that he hasn’t yet spoken to Republican lawmakers about potential gun-related legislation in the wake of the horrifying mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, but expressed some tacit optimism that GOP lawmakers would be open to enacting gun reform.
“I think they’re going to have to take a hard look,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Monday. The president also described Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has been tasked by McConnell to negotiate with Democrats, as “rational Republicans.”
“I think there’s a recognition in their part that they — we can’t continue like this,” Biden told reporters on Monday.
While some gun measures have passed the Democrat-controlled House, Senate Democrats are severely limited in what they can accomplish due to the legislative filibuster —...