What Trump says on Tuesday he rejects on Thursday. You can't negotiate legislation with this so-called president.
August 14, 2019

Donald Trump does a great job of talking out of both sides of his mouth on pretty much every single issue, but none on a more frequent basis than gun control. Immediately following a mass shooting, he gets on TV and sends out tweets promising "beautiful gun laws that even the NRA wants" and then does...nothing.

Senator Hirono went on CNN to talk about this phenomenon, calling it the "Tuesday/Thursday Trump Effect."

HOST: Joining us now to discuss, Senator, thank you for being with us. Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, and Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, they had a bill expanding background checks. They've been talking to the White House. Chris Murphy's team has been talking to the White House. Do you have any updates where these discussions are?

HIRONO: We all know the key is whether the president is actually going to do what he says he's going to do which is sign a background check bill into law. So even though Republicans are apparently saying that unless he iron-clad says that "I'm going to do it" then why should people really proceed? But you know what, you just hope that it can happen because that's minimum. To me, closing the background check loopholes, because that's what it is, it's not expanding some background checks but closing some loopholes we have on the current law. To me, that is minimum what we should be doing. And you just did a piece right now on this young man who has stockpiles of all kinds of weapons. We need to look at all the assault weapons that are floating into our country by the millions.

HOST: To be clear, HRA, which passed the Democratic House, would close some of what you call loopholes. That has passed the House and the Senate.

HIRONO: And so the other key person is Mitch McConnell who refuses to bring this bill to the floor of the Senate and he prides himself on being the Grim Reaper, holding back all kinds of bills that have already been passed by the House. This is one of them.

HOST: When the President says he likes background checks vaguely speaking, it doesn't sound --

HIRONO: Didn't he say that before? We've been here before. So I call it the "Tuesday Thursday Trump." A meeting at the White House and that was on Tuesday when he said "Bring me a bipartisan bill on DACA," - that was on a Tuesday. By Thursday it's all off the table. So I call him the "Tuesday Thursday Trump." And he can say something on Tuesday and next thing identify know it's all off the table.

HOST: What could he show you? How could he prove it?

HIRONO: Even Republicans aren't sure he's going to sign a background check law. I don't know what the President can do at this point because he lies to the American public every single day. We can't rely on what the President says, and I know that often he contradicts himself on a regular basis, not only just the lies but the contradictions. That's why when you have a President who's that mercurial, who changes his mind at the drop of a hat, we an unstable situation in our country.

Spot on description.

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