richard painter is the former chief white house ethics lawyer under president george w. bush. he is also now running for the united states senate in minnesota as a democrat after being a life-long member of the gop. richard, good to see you. i really want to hone in on this. you have articulated this better than most. the nra doesn t simply support you if you support their view on guns and the world. but they threaten you if you tor loosen or add any nuance to your support. absolutely they do. the nra makes it very clear to members of congress that they have to toe the line 100% of the nra agenda. if they do not, they will face a primary challenger. particularly in the republican party. they will face a primary challenger who will attack them from the right with enormous amounts of nra money and other money from extreme right wing
this senator is not with me on x, y and z and make case of leverage. because of slow start and democrats going down the road of russia investigation they felt embold entered and there may be more lever ram that the president of the administration has. let me say for a second that for 30 million dollars which was a tremendous pooingt to trump s campaign in places like pennsylvania, rural pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin, i think it was a difference maker in so many places. he s going to have to do something. what he said today was you guys backed me and now i ll come through for you whavrment is exactly that agenda? oh, concealed weapon. making it easier to carry concealed weapons. and how about this one? everybody should have a silencer on their gun. oh, my god. i don t think that s what he said. i think that s nra agenda. that s not what the president said right dana.
said to me why didn t they warn us. now there seems to be a rush and they re slowing down and perhaps with the diminishing of steve bannon s influence, there are one thing that he is doing today is the first president to to be doing this, the first sitting president to speak at the nra conference, this is an important signal, mel i did, where he stands on gun laws. it is he certainly leaned into his support for the nra agenda. going back, addressing the nra
supreme court which we hope it will and soon, will be declared unconstitutional. and that s what a lot of that exchange was over last night. i just wanted to make it crystal clear to people who are watching. and sitting in that debate hall in las vegas watching those five candidates on stage, i know you were invited by governor o malley, but who in your opinion is strongest on gun reform? well, out of the group, governor o malley is. and i think he s been successful in pushing the other two to at least discuss the issue. that s what we re thrilled about because it s never been discussed before on a national stage. so, you know, the republicans have the nra agenda as part of their platform so this is really great to be able to say the democrats are on the side of gun violence prevention in this country. and that s important for the american people to hear. it s not about taking guns. it s not about banning guns. it s about having safety measures in place so the wrong