{"id":109343,"date":"2025-04-16T02:47:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T07:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109343"},"modified":"2025-04-16T02:47:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T07:47:30","slug":"109343","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109343","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump Snubs NRA Convention<\/a><\/p>\n

For the first time since 2015, President Donald Trump won\u2019t be speaking at the National Rifle Association\u2019s Annual Meeting.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the NRA confirmed President Trump would not be attending the event in Atlanta, Georgia, at the end of the month. It also said it had canceled the Leadership Forum, the part of the conference where Trump and other politicians usually address NRA members. It cited scheduling conflicts as the reason for Trump\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough President Trump is unable to attend the NRA\u2019s 2025 Annual Meeting, he is always welcome on our stage to address our members and has done so on nine occasions over the last decade,\u201d the NRA told\u00a0The Reload<\/em>. \u201cAs an NRA Life Member himself, President Trump remains a steadfast advocate for NRA members and a champion for the right to keep and bear arms. Considering the high level and pace of work being done by his administration on many fronts to make America great again and put America first on the world stage, we can understand that he has a complex, ever-moving schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on President Trump\u2019s decision not to speak. However, this is not the first NRA event he has canceled in recent months. At the end of the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump\u00a0canceled a planned rally with the group<\/a>\u00a0in the swing state of Georgia.<\/p>\n

The abrupt end to Trump\u2019s streak of speaking at the NRA\u2019s biggest gathering of the year, which draws tens of thousands of visitors, comes as his administration has taken a slower approach to gun policy reforms than most other areas. The White House left gun policy off its list of priorities, and Trump skipped it altogether during his record-long speech to a joint session of Congress in March. The decision to skip the NRA speech also reflects his diminishing relationship with the organization as it has\u00a0struggled to pull out of a half-decade-long tailspin<\/a>, resulting from\u00a0former NRA leader Wayne LaPierre\u2019s long-running financial impropriety<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the NRA was one of the only major national groups to spend big on Trump\u2019s candidacy. It poured over $50 million into that election, and its membership rose to all-time highs under his first term. It had direct access to Trump during much of his first term as well, with LaPierre and former-NRA lobbyist Chris Cox having Oval Office meetings with him.<\/p>\n

However, shortly after Trump spoke at the 2019 Annual Meeting, news of LaPierre\u2019s misuse of NRA funds caused a brewing leadership battle to\u00a0boil over into public view<\/a>. That fight lasted years and ended with the firing of Cox, loss of millions of members, as well as the ouster of LaPierre and a court finding he was\u00a0liable for millions in damages<\/a>. It also took a toll on the NRA\u2019s ability to fundraise and spend in elections, with the group spending\u00a0less and less through Trump\u2019s subsequent presidential runs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, the gun-rights group has remained a strong backer of Trump throughout that time. It has rarely publicly disagreed with him. The only notable times the NRA has criticized Trump came after he declared he wasn\u2019t beholden to the group in the wake of the 2018 Parkland shooting, backing unrealized new gun restrictions, and he unilaterally banned bump stocks after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting\u2013which the Supreme Court eventually found unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

The NRA also backed Trump during the 2024 Republican primary, despite Florida Governor Ron DeSantis\u00a0initially positioning himself to the right of Trump on guns<\/a>. They brought Trump in to speak to NRA members at multiple Annual Meetings during his numerous criminal prosecutions, one of which ended in a felony conviction that bars him from owning guns. During his 2023 Annual Meeting speech, Trump even claimed he and the NRA were facing similar legal persecution at the hands of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D.).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very same raging radical left lunatic attorney general that is coming after me in New York state is also waging war on the NRA, shamefully trying to destroy this legendary organization that\u2019s been an American institution since 1871,\u201d Trump said\u00a0at the time<\/a>. \u201cThey better endorse me again or they\u2019re going to have some explaining to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NRA also invited Trump to speak to members in Pennsylvania before he had wrapped up the nomination.\u00a0Trump made a series of promises<\/a>\u00a0to undo President Joe Biden\u2019s gun rules during that February 2024 event. The NRA formally endorsed him a short time later.<\/p>\n

Still, a source familiar with the discussion about canceling Trump\u2019s speech to the NRA, who asked to remain anonymous to speak candidly, said the group has \u201cfallen out of favor.\u201d Although reformers have\u00a0gained control of NRA leadership in the wake of the ruling against LaPierre<\/a>\u00a0and the group has\u00a0already instituted some changes<\/a>\u00a0with more promised, the moves haven\u2019t yet left a positive impression in the White House. That\u2019s at least in part because the President \u201cdoesn\u2019t even have any idea who runs NRA anymore or what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Trump has put gun policy on the back burner and is well behind his own timetable to implement pro-gun reforms, the NRA has yet to criticize him during his still-young second term. The group has instead focused on the policy moves the Trump Administration has announced thus far. While it\u2019s\u00a0behind schedule<\/a>, Trump did\u00a0order the Department of Justice to review executive branch gun policies<\/a>\u2013which recently led to the\u00a0official elimination of the Biden-era \u201czero tolerance\u201d ATF policy<\/a>\u00a0toward gun dealer malfeasance or mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn just over 80 days since he took office, President Trump has already made critical changes to safeguard the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans,\u201d the NRA said. \u201cThis includes rolling back radical administrative rules instituted by the Biden-Harris administration and ordering the Attorney General to expose work by various government agencies and bureaus that limit the gun rights of lawful citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NRA doesn\u2019t appear to be changing tack despite Trump\u2019s decision not to speak. Instead of complaining about Trump skipping its meeting, the NRA chastised Congress for not sending a reciprocity bill to his desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has pledged to sign national concealed carry reciprocity into law,\u201d the group said. \u201cCongress should deliver this bill to his desk. We look forward to continuing our partnership with President Trump and his administration to further strengthen Second Amendment freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate version of concealed carry reciprocity currently has 46 co-sponsors, none of whom are Democrats, putting it well short of the 60-vote threshold likely needed to make it to President Trump\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

The NRA\u2019s 2025 Annual Meeting will take place at the Georgia World Congress Center from April 24th through the 27th. It\u2019s not clear what, if anything, will replace the Leadership Forum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump Snubs NRA Convention For the first time since 2015, President Donald Trump won\u2019t be speaking at the National Rifle Association\u2019s Annual Meeting. On Tuesday, the NRA confirmed President Trump would not be attending the event in Atlanta, Georgia, at the end of the month. It also said it had canceled the Leadership Forum, the … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-the-more-things-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}