At two separate points on the Friday morning edition of MSNBC’s The Rundown, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, NBC News senior White House correspondent Chris Jansing and fill-in host Thomas Roberts joined fellow cable channel CNN in bemoaning the lack of gun control during the Obama administration and especially after Newtown.
Speaking in the program’s first hour with Roberts, Todd called on “responsible leaders” to put “everything on the table” to consider whether or not incidents such as the one in Lafayette Thursday night are part of “an epidemic” because “[i]t feels like one.”
Roberts asked Todd if President Obama “has the political fuel in the tank to take” gun control “on as he winds down his second term” and Todd proceeded to maintain that Obama “does” but expressed doubt that “the system” and “Washington” have the same maturity and appetite to do so. Todd then rehashed the failed gun control push after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook:
I think we saw if he couldn't get it done after Sandy Hook and couldn't get an increase in background checks on that front, and remember what we were talking about. It was tightening the background checks and just trying to get a bill through the Senate. It was never going to get through the House. This was just trying to get a bill through the Senate and it didn't get there at all. I think, you know, I don't think Washington has the capacity to handle this, to handle this debate, whether, if the President chooses to have it or not. I think that that's his frustration.
Before Roberts wrapped up the segment with the admission that “it feels like we're a little too jaded,” Todd suggested that “maybe political leaders ought to have the guts to try to say, ‘let's try to have a different conversation and come up with some results’” when it comes to gun control.
In the next hour, Jansing spoke from Nairobi, Kenya ahead of the President’s visit there and noted her experience in having “covered virtually every mass shooting since Columbine” in expressing the belief that she “never saw so much belief that something could change as I did after Newtown and we saw very up close and personal in the President the level of frustration” when it failed.
With shootings recently in both Lafayette, Louisiana and Charleston, South Carolina, Jansing reported that the tragedies have provided “new impetus” for the Obama administration “to see what can possibly be done.”
However, Jansing struck a pessimistic tone with her final summation: “Although, I can tell you that, in private conversations with senior administration officials before this shooting, there wasn't a lot of optimism given everything else that's on the plate and how strong the forces against any kind of legislation are.”
The relevant portions of MSNBC’s The Rundown on July 24 can be found below.
MSNBC’s The Rundown
July 24, 2015
9:23 a.m. Eastern
MEET THE PRESS MODERATOR CHUCK TODD: I mean, I think you're going to see two conversations launched again. Obviously, the President eerily prescient words with the BBC, and not surprising that issue, obviously, the gun issue, viewed very differently in the UK than it is here in the United States, but still, very prescient on that front and then we're going to have the mental health conversation, too. You know, the two need to go hand in hand in here, and I think sometimes you see an emphasis on one over the other and usually, that's because somebody's politics gets in the way and if it's, you know, maybe one side only wants to talk mental health because they don't want to have a gun conversation or one side want to have the gun conversation, not have the mental health conversation. I think the fact of the matter is responsible leaders should be looking at every on the table and how do we do this. Here's the thing. Is this an epidemic? It feels like one. You ran down the list. Is this also just we see this stuff more? You know, why does it feel more frequent today than it did even 30 years go? And again, maybe it's a perception and not a reality, but I think I look at what I want to do now is look at even more statistics and look at this and say to ourselves, what – is there something going on here? It feels like there is.
THOMAS ROBERTS: Well, with the Charleston shooting, you know, that person, that shooter in custody, and will face justice. Chattanooga, that shooter, we're learning more about him and a distressing mental picture that is playing out, and we'll learn more about what this shooter in Lafayette being described as a drifter and the unspecified criminal history that he has, but do you think that the president has the political fuel in the tank to take this on as he winds down his second term?
TODD: Well, I think he does. I just don't know if the system does. Does Washington? Can they, you know, it's a – when it comes, if he wants to push the gun issue, I think we saw if he couldn't get it done after Sandy Hook and couldn't get an increase in background checks on that front, and remember what we were talking about. It was tightening the background checks and just trying to get a bill through the Senate. It was never going to get through the House. This was just trying to get a bill through the Senate and it didn't get there at all. I think, you know, I don't think Washington has the capacity to handle this, to handle this debate, whether, if the President chooses to have it or not. I think that that's his frustration. His political advisers tell him, this is useless. I think there's another part of him that says, but I don't want to – I want to get caught trying.
(....)
TODD: [I]t all feels too familiar and that's the part of this that I think all political leaders should say to themselves, wait a minute, this should not feel familiar. This should not – we should not, Thomas, know that there is a standard way that we know how people react to stories like this. That in and of itself is a problem and maybe political leaders ought to have the guts to try to say, ‘let's try to have a different conversation and come up with some results.’
ROBERTS: Yeah, it feels like we're a little too jaded.
(....)
CHRIS JANSING: I can tell you as someone who has covered virtually every mass shooting since Columbine up and through Charleston, I never saw so much belief that something could change as I did after Newtown and we saw very up close and personal in the President the level of frustration, but I think these series of shootings that we've seen just over the last several weeks have given this administration new impetus to see what can possibly be done. Although, I can tell you that, in private conversations with senior administration officials before this shooting, there wasn't a lot of optimism given everything else that's on the plate and how strong the forces against any kind of legislation are.
