Politics

America has a gun problem — Donald Trump and Project 2025 could make things worse

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

America has a gun problem — Donald Trump and Project 2025 could make things worse

This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 7 episode of “Velshi.”

If the gun rights lobby has its way, last week’s tragic school shooting in Georgia will be reduced to yet another statistic, dressed up in empty thoughts and prayers. And if Donald Trump returns to office in November, the Republican Party’s unholy alliance with the corporate gun lobby could be cemented into federal law.

If Donald Trump returns to office in November, the GOP’s unholy alliance with the corporate gun lobby could be cemented into federal law.

Both Project 2025 and Trump’s official policy platform, Agenda 47, aim to shield the gun industry with layers of legal protection. While Trump has been trying to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s far-right manifesto for some months now, the proposals in Agenda 47 mirror Project 2025’s dangerous objectives — and in many cases, go even further.

In fact, Trump campaign officials even acknowledged in 2023, before the public caught wind of Project 2025, that it “aligns well” with Trump’s Agenda 47, which is featured on his campaign website and includes multiple links to the Heritage Foundation’s work. Agenda 47 began rolling out in December 2022 and was followed four months later by the Heritage Foundation’s release of Project 2025 in April 2023.

Taken together, Project 2025 and Agenda 47 would grant the gun lobby essentiallyeverythingon its wish list, including making it easier to sell dangerous firearms, weakening concealed carry laws, and overturning state bans on assault weapons.

That’s in spite of the fact that most Americans, including Republicans, support strong gun control laws. A survey from the Pew Research Center found that a majority of Americans support banning assault weapons, a term used to describe certain semi-automatic weapons including AR-15-style rifles, like the kind used in this week’s shooting in Georgia. Fewer than one-third support allowing expansive gun laws like concealed carry without a permit.

Either way, this has never truly been about protecting Second Amendment rights for ordinary gun owners, despite Republican talking points. It has always been about the GOP’s dangerous alliance with the corporate gun lobby.

That much is reflected in a proposal advanced by the far-right caucus known as the Republican Study Committee, which adopts ideas from both Agenda 47 and Project 2025. That proposal includes the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, the National Rifle Association’s top legislative priority, which would overturn state laws on carrying concealed firearms, and allow guns to be more easily transportable across state lines.

In his Agenda 47 pitch, Trump explicitly states, “I will sign concealed carry reciprocity. Your Second Amendment does not end at the state line.” The law would force each state to recognize the concealed carry standards from every other state — even those states that have dramatically weaker standards and states that don’t require any permitat all.

Gun control advocates describe it as “a race to the bottom for public safety.” According to the group Everytown for Gun Safety, it would be no different than:

“Forcing states to let visitors drive on their highways without a driver’s license and without having passed an eye, written, or road test … [Out-of-state] visitors could be armed without being screened by a background check, and law enforcement would have no permit to evaluate.”

Today’s GOP has repeatedly shown its willingness to sacrifice states’ rights as long as it allows them to impose their extremist agenda.

That’s probably why leading law enforcement groups have opposed the legislation. Gun laws are not a priority for voters or even police departments. Instead, it serves mainly the interests of the corporate gun lobby.

The irony here is that this proposed law blatantly disregards state sovereignty, meaning the party that publicly champions limited federal government and states’ rights is violating its own core principles. From reproductive rights to gun control, today’s GOP has repeatedly shown its willingness to sacrifice states’ rights as long as it allows them to impose their extremist agenda on all Americans.

In fact, right now, the gun industry is working in tandem with Republican lawmakers to overturn all state bans on AR-15-style weapons. While the GOP tries to push this legislation through Congress, gun rights groups are suing to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons including the AR-15 type, the weapon of choice in American mass shootings.

The conservative Supreme Court is slated to hear the case this fall, after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld Maryland’s ban, describing the assault-style weapons as “too destructive for self-defense” and best suited for “wreaking death and destruction.” Federal Judge Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee who authored the majority opinion, quoted a trauma surgeon who likened being shot in the liver by an AR-15 to a watermelon exploding on concrete.

But instead of placing blame where it belongs — on the GOP’s financial benefactor, the corporate gun lobby — Agenda 47 cynically diverts attention by targeting a popular GOP scapegoat: the LGBTQ+ community.

In a section addressing school violence, Trump proposes directing the Food and Drug Administration to assemble an “independent outside panel to investigate whether transgender hormone treatments and ideology increase the risk of extreme depression, aggression, and violence. “However, the Gun Violence Archive, which began collecting data on gun violence in 2013, found that the percentage of suspects in mass shootings who are trans is just 0.11%.

The proposals outlined in Project 2025 and Agenda 47 will take a sledgehammer to the already limited gun control measures we have.

Another alarming proposal in Project 2025, which builds on Agenda 47, essentially cripples existing gun control regulations. On page 709, Project 2025 calls for transferring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the agency responsible for regulating firearms, from the Justice Department to the Treasury Department. This shift would dramatically weaken our nation’s ability to enforce gun laws by making it nearly impossible to track the sale of dangerous firearms, leading to increased gun trafficking and making it more challenging to investigate gun-related crimes.

Lastly, Trump’s Agenda 47 calls for arming teachers with guns and supports sending “federal funding to hire … trained gun owners as armed guards in our nation’s schools.” This is despite a John Hopkins survey showing that less than a quarter, only 23%, of Americans support allowing civilians to carry guns on school grounds. The proposal reflects the GOP’s long-standing policy of shifting the responsibility for public safety from the gun industry to schoolchildren and administrators.

In the absence of any real political will, schoolchildren are left scrambling for bullet-proof backpacks and classroom “panic buttons,” among other Band-Aid solutions. And with classrooms increasingly resembling maximum-security prisons, consider this: Project 2025 refers to abortion access as “the grotesque culture of violence against the child in the womb.”

It seems, though, that once children are out of the womb, the GOP is perfectly content with leaving them to fend for themselves in the face of unchecked gun violence.

The extreme proposals outlined in Project 2025 and Agenda 47 will take a sledgehammer to the already limited gun control measures we have, leaving us scrambling for ever-more inadequate defenses against the uniquely American public health crisis of gun violence.

This post is part of “Inside Project 2025,” an ongoing series on BLN’s “Velshi.” Each week, host Ali Velshi explores some of the most outrageous proposals from the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for a second Trump presidency and explains how they could impact you. Read how Project 2025 would affect your family, presidential power and the Department of Justice.

Politics

‘I think Alaska’s turning blue’: Republicans fret Sullivan’s path to reelection

Published

1 day ago

October 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

WASILLA, Alaska — Three weeks out from Election Day, President Donald Trump took a helicopter to a plane to another helicopter to a motorcade to an ice hockey rink in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Valley, traversing nearly 4,000 miles over more than eight hours to turn out his base here to help Republicans defend the Senate.

But Trump’s trek might not be enough to save Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s running in a tougher-than-expected race against Democrat Mary Peltola in a state where the president’s approval rating is underwater and independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.

Alaska strategists and voters who spoke to Blue Light News acknowledged that Sullivan faces a difficult path to reelection, despite Trump’s time investment and the outside money pouring in.

“Very conservative MAGA voters can’t vote for you harder,” said Scott Kendall, a veteran political strategist who worked on two of Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns and was chief of staff to former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker. “Donald Trump’s support in this current climate is both a blessing and a curse.”

Even some Trump supporters at the Tuesday night rally admitted the outlook appeared bleak.

“I think Alaska’s turning blue,” said Matt Niessink, a 45-year-old general contractor from Wasilla. He said he had voted for Trump three times and planned to support Republicans this year.

What did he wish the president would do differently? “I wish he’d shut his mouth sometimes and not be such a pompous ass,” Niessink said.

The president was in Wasilla — population 10,556 — because the outlook is darkening for his party in a state he carried by 13 points just two years ago. In a midterm year defined by the cost of gas and groceries, the Last Frontier has been hit particularly hard, with the average price of diesel nearing $7 per gallon. In the Senate race, Peltola is flush with cash and leads Sullivan in most polls. MAGA Inc., the cash-rich Trump-aligned super PAC, is increasingly focusing on Alaska as one in a slate of states that can help Republicans hold the Senate.

Enter Trump, who has been spending the cycle’s crucial final weeks holding rallies in red states to juice support among his base, which tends to see depressed turnout in years when he’s not on the ballot.

“That was a lot of flying,” the president said at the top of his remarks. “In fact, they were thinking about canceling. They said, ‘Sir, you’re very busy, this is very tough.’” But, Trump continued, he refused to cancel for a state he won three times.

Echoing his comments at other red-state rallies, Trump asked the roaring crowd for “one big favor” — to “pretend that I’m on the ballot, because every time I’ve been on the ballot, we win.” He repeated his promise that Americans will receive $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold both chambers.

“What this is about is getting out the vote,” Sullivan told reporters before Trump’s speech. “A rising tide of enthusiasm lifts all the candidates.”

Unlike some other Republican candidates in tight races, Sullivan has shied away from distancing himself from the least popular aspects of Trump’s presidency.

Sullivan proclaimed on stage at the rally that “the conflict in the Middle East is temporary. The true forever war is the national Democrats’ war against Alaska oil and gas and our jobs.” And although a campaign aide released a statement condemning Trump’s move to import Russian diesel, Sullivan did not join four of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Murkowski, who called on Trump to reverse the decision.

Art Hackney, a veteran Republican strategist in Alaska, said that “most of the people who support” Sullivan “think that he should” break more with the president.

Hackney, who runs a pro-Sullivan super PAC called “We Stand with Dan,” attributed that choice to loyalty — but suggested the president’s demand of fealty, and treatment of frequent dissenter Murkowski, could also be part of Sullivan’s calculus.

“A lot of his longtime supporters and the people who are in the industries that would benefit from that wish he would be more blunt,” Hackney said. “But with what Murkowski has done, if Dan did something considered a disrespectful trigger or something, what do you think would happen? It could well have implications for things that affect Alaska’s economy.”

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Politics

In private, top Republicans believe the House is a lost cause

Published

1 day ago

October 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.

Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told Blue Light News the House had all but slipped away.

One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.

“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”

A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.

Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”

Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.

Trump officials and other top GOP operatives say more candidates may be cut off in the coming days, in order to shift advertising money to races where it can make more of a difference. Republican groups have already given up on multiple races where they once hoped to unseat Democratic lawmakers.

The Republican Party is under extreme pressure across the Midwest, where it is now spending heavily to defend Senate seats in once-reliably MAGA states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.

Bacon, a maverick often at odds with the White House, said there was no mystery in his party’s political tribulations.

“I’ve talked to some who are making these decisions: The biggest problem is the president’s polling numbers and unfavorables,” Bacon said.

White House officials insist they’re not giving up on either chamber of Congress. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said Trump remained “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.”

As he departed on Tuesday to campaign in Alaska for embattled GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, Trump professed optimism about the midterms but acknowledged that sitting presidents typically see their party lose seats in the off year.

“But I’m doing a tour right now and I’m doing rallies,” Trump added. “The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, flatly declaring during a campaign stop in deep-red Texas that “the polling is wrong” in showing his party on the brink of a broad defeat.

Yet at a tactical level, the Republican Party’s moves to shift money away from defending the House and toward saving the Senate are clear enough. In recent days, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for House Republicans, canceled advertising for key House candidates in Nebraska and Iowa and allowed the Senate Leadership Fund – a Republican group focused on the upper chamber – to swoop in and claim the airtime to support Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa.

“These are not the moves of a party that’s going to keep the House,” a third Republican lawmaker said.

In statements to Blue Light News, both CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee said they had no intention of giving up on the fight for control of the House.

NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said districts are won “one by one,” and that the GOP has “the financial firepower and ground game needed to win.”

Chris Winkelman, president of CLF, said his group would keep moving money around to maximize the impact nationally.

The goal, he said, was to “keep the pressure on the most vulnerable Democrats and preserve a path to 218 seats.”

Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his swing seat in Trump’s first midterm election eight years ago, said his former colleagues were clear-eyed about where the election seemed to be headed.

“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo said. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway.”

Megan Messerly, Lauren Fedor, Lisa Kashinsky and Myah Ward contributed to this report.

Politics

Ossoff says he has ‘zero interest in running for president’

Published

2 days ago

October 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said Tuesday he will not run for president in 2028 and committed to serving a full six-year Senate term if reelected.

“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president. I’m running for reelection to the Senate,” Ossoff said during a Georgia Senate debate against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.

Asked by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether he would serve his full term if he wins in November, Ossoff replied: “Yes, I will.”

The remarks are Ossoff’s most forceful rejection yet of a potential 2028 presidential bid even as his name has repeatedly surfaced in national Democrats’ conversations about possible contenders for the party’s nomination. His public commitment to a full Senate term on Tuesday is the latest of his campaign’s many efforts to tamp down that speculation.

Ossoff gained national attention this year given his strong fundraising numbers, his consistent lead in public polling against Collins and his ability to generate viral moments on the campaign trail, particularly through his attacks on President Donald Trump. Democrats are bullish about Ossoff’s ability to hold onto his Senate seat — so much so that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC said Tuesday it was removing its ad spending in Georgia for the week.

He’s also taken steps to boost the state Democratic party in Georgia, a perennial battleground that has been and will be key to winning the presidency. If November brings historic wins up and down the ballot, Ossoff will get some of the credit — and he’ll have confirmed his status as a leader in the swing state.