Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarifies: Trump said lots of stuff this week he may not mean
Trump suggested repeatedly that raising the age limit was a matter of political will and doing the right thing, even if the NRA doesn’t like it. Now Sanders is suggesting it might be too difficult — despite a CNN poll this week showing 71 percent of Americans favor the change
.. MURPHY: Ninety-seven percent of Americans want universal background checks. In states that have universal background checks, there are 35 percent less gun murders than in states that don’t have them. And yet, we can’t get it done. There’s nothing else like that, where it works, people want it, and we can’t do it.
THE PRESIDENT: But you have a different president now.
SENATOR MURPHY: Well, listen —
THE PRESIDENT: You went through a lot of presidents, and you didn’t get it done. You have a different president. And I think, maybe, you have a different attitude, too. I think people want to get it done.
.. “You have to [be] very, very powerful on background checks; don’t be shy.” He also said he wanted something “really strong on background checks.”
.. he didn’t announce those percentages until the end of an event, when reporters asked him about it. That led to suggestions that maybe those numbers weren’t ready for public consumption. And judging by Sanders’s comments — including at Thursday’s press briefing, in which she said of the 25 percent figure, “I think that’s the intent” — that may be the case.
But here’s the thing: This announcement sent the markets plunging. It inflamed tensions with China and the European Union. And now Sanders is suggesting there’s a possibility — however small — that it might not be ironclad. That’s a hell of a way to do business.