Kellyanne Conway says Democrats were too focused on Russia to talk gun control
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, suggested in a CNN interview on Thursday that Democrats have been so focused on the investigation into Russia's election meddling that they have been ignoring conversations about gun control.
Conway accused Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of only speaking out about gun control when politically convenient – including after mass shootings.
“They either have tweeted zero to one times this year about guns,” she said. “They’ve tweeted about Russia dozens of times, they’ve tweeted about this president innumerable times … They react and we need to thoughtful conversations in this country.”
In the wake of the Las Vegas shooting that left 59 people dead and another 500 injured, Trump has repeatedly avoided questions about whether he would offer stricter restrictions on gun purchasing. "We are not going to talk about that today," Trump said Wednesday, while visiting with survivors of the attack.
CNN host Chris Cuomo suggested the reason Democrats may be more focused on the issue now is because of the increased public attention – and noted that Trump has been quiet on the issue even after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.
"The president says 'not now' and then it (the discussion) doesn't happen," Cuomo said.
"You make the point yourself ... You say, 'They don't talk about it except when these happen,'" he told Conway. 'Yeah, that's right. Because when it happens there's acute need and there's focus, and when you say, 'We don't want to talk about it now,' you're ignoring the urgency and you're hoping it goes away."
Earlier in the interview, Conway suggested the Obama administration was partly to blame for the Vegas shooting after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2010 decided against regulating the device that the Las Vegas shooter used in the attack. The so-called "bump stock" rifle attachments enable rapid firing.
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Conway suggested the Republican party would be open to regulating bump stocks.
House Speaker Paul Ryan echoed Conway’s words later in the afternoon during an interview with MSNBC.
Ryan said he just learned about bump stocks over the past few days.
"Look, I didn't even know what they were until this week, and I'm an avid sportsman," the Wisconsin Republican said in a clip of the interview that aired Thursday.
"So, I think we're quickly coming up to speed with what this is. Fully automatic weapons have been banned for a long time. Apparently this allows you to take a semiautomatic and turn it into a fully automatic so clearly that's something we need to look into."