DALLAS–O National Rifle Association is formally supporting the former president donald trumpan expected endorsement that came Saturday at the group’s annual convention in Dallas.
The endorsement of his presidential campaign came just before Trump took the stage to give the keynote address at the NRA’s annual meeting, a speech he used to paint a portrait of the president Joe Biden as an attempt to undermine gun rights without citing specifics.
“We have to have a Second Amendment that is meaningful. We will have… death and destruction like we have never seen before,” Trump said to a packed ballroom at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center about the possibility of a Biden re-election victory.
Trump used the event to try to drum up enthusiasm among a largely friendly public to vote for him.
“Gun owners must vote,” Trump said in the room, packed with politically active gun owners. “We want a landslide.”
On Saturday, hours before taking the stage, the Trump campaign launched the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition, a group of 50 Olympic athletes and gun industry leaders who support the Trump campaign.
Trump spent stretches of his time talking about gun rights and the fact that, if elected, he would revoke the Biden administration’s executive orders aimed at reducing gun violence. But he spent much of his roughly two-hour speech focused on immigration, crime rates and baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a prominent gun control advocacy group, attacked Trump not only for his stance on gun safety but also for another characteristically incoherent speech that had no real direct focus.
“Between meandering speeches about Al Capone, the president of France, and golf handicaps, Donald Trump has once again made it clear that he is fully invested in the NRA’s politically toxic agenda of undoing the life-saving progress we have made on gun safety under the President Biden,” said John Feinblatt, the group’s president. “As his first term has shown us, we must believe Trump when he says he will do nothing to protect our communities from gun violence if he is reelected.”
Trump has blasted the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate who is seen as a potential spoilsport for both major political parties in a race expected to be decided by razor-thin margins. One NBC News Poll released last month found that Kennedy’s candidacy hurt Trump more than Biden.
Trump led Biden by two percentage points in a head-to-head matchup, but when the field was expanded to five, including Kennedy, Jill Stein and Cornel West, Biden took a two-point lead, outperforming Trump by 39%-37%.
“For some reason, he… is hurting Biden a little more,” Trump said of Kennedy’s independent presidential bid. “But we cannot waste votes.”
Trump said he would use next week’s invitation to headline the Libertarian Party’s national convention to try to secure voters who could be seen as supporting Kennedy.
“To a large extent, they have a lot of what we have,” Trump said of libertarians who hold political positions similar to those of Republican base voters. “They get 3% a year no matter who is running.”
“We cannot risk Joe Biden’s victory,” he added.
Trump was largely confined to a Manhattan courtroom last month for a trial related to allegations that he paid $130,000 in hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election cycle.
Trump addressed the trial only briefly, acknowledging a gag order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan, something Trump has already violated 10 times, costing him $10,000.
Trump has used weekends and Wednesdays, his weekly days off from the trail, to hold rallies, campaign events and fundraisers.
His part-time campaign, however, has worked so far. He maintained leads in the key states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, according to a New York Times/Sienna poll released last week.
“We are leading in every swing state by massive numbers,” Trump said of the New York Times poll, which he referred to by name.
The NRA has also suffered legal setbacks in recent months. The gun rights organization was considered responsible in a civil corruption trial in February. Former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre embezzled millions of dollars from the group to finance his lavish lifestyle and the NRA failed to manage its finances properly, determined jurors.
Once seen as one of the biggest fundraising vehicles for conservative political candidates, the NRA’s reach has declined considerably in recent years, capped by faltering influence in the political sphere and declining membership rates. Membership has fallen to 4.2 million from nearly 6 million five years ago, The New York Times reported.
Membership fees fell by $14 million from 2021 to 2022, according to an audit presented as part of the lawsuit.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
