Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that he has asked several Republican committee chairmen to come up with possible solutions to address gun violence, shortly after President Donald Trump called on members of both parties to work together on the issue.
The majority leader said in a statement that he had spoken with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker.
“I asked them to reflect on the subjects the president raised within their jurisdictions and encouraged them to engage in bipartisan discussions of potential solutions to help protect our communities without infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights,” McConnell noted, according to The Hill.
During Monday’s speech, President Trump urged the nation to condemn and reject white supremacy and called on lawmakers to work in a bipartisan fashion to respond to the shootings.
“We must seek real, bipartisan solutions. We have to do that in a bipartisan manner. … Republicans and Democrats have proven that we can join together in a bipartisan fashion to address this plague,” Trump said.
McConnell stressed in his statement that Republicans were ready to do their part.
Wicker, who confirmed in a statement of his own that he had spoken to the majority leader, said it was necessary that any legislation they consider “be able to pass the Senate and the House and earn the president’s signature.”
Alexander said on Twitter that he was prepared to do more, “especially on background checks, to identify those who shouldn’t have guns.”
At the same time, Graham said he had reached a deal with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal on “red flag” legislation.
Democrats have also increased pressure on McConnell to call the Senate back from the August recess in order to work on gun legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter Monday that her chamber would come back from recess “if the Senate sends us back an amended bipartisan [background check] bill or if other legislation is ready for House action.”
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