Trump latest: Republicans unleash on Trump, say he could have stopped Jan 6 attack earlier

A Trump-endorsed GOP congressman in Kentucky believes the solution to mass shootings targeting schoolchildren is completely getting rid of gun-free zones around schools, where members of the public are not allowed to carry weapons.

“The biggest thing we can do here today is repeal the 1990 Gun-Free School Zone Act so that the default condition in this country is not to advertise every student as a target,” Thomas Massie asserted at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Mr Massie was endorsed for reelection by Donald Trump last month. The former president said that the conservative congressman “fights hard to Protect your Liberties, especially the First and Second Amendments, which are under siege by the Radical Left”. He previously had called for Mr Massie’s ouster from the GOP over his opposition to a Covid-19 relief package.

Read more from The Independent’s Eric Garcia:

In a primetime address on Tuesday President Joe Biden took a much sharper tone against Republican opposition to firearm restrictions, blaming them for a spike in mass shootings that occurred after the end of the assault weapons ban.

”After Republicans let the law expire in 2004 — and those weapons were allowed to be sold again — mass shootings tripled,” his Twitter account noted during the remarks.

The president’s words came after several Republicans including Donald Trump addressed a convention of the National Rifle Association in Houston, Texas, just days after a mass shooting occurred at an elementary school in the state.

Read more in The Independent from John Bowden:

In a little less than an hour President Joe Biden is slated to give a national address, announced only a few hours earlier, regarding gun violence and a spate of mass shootings that have torn through the nation in recent days.

The president is vowing action to address gun violence but faces an uphill battle to seeing any legislation pass through the Senate due to the 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats in the chamber. Some lawmakers are currently meeting in the hopes of striking a compromise as the chamber recesses this month.

Read more about Mr Biden’s address from Eric Garcia and Alex Woodward in The Independent:

The bombastic Trump supporter running under the Pennsylvania GOP’s banner in the state’s gubernatorial race is one of the top supporters of Donald Trump’s 2020 eletction fraud conspiracies.

Now, Doug Mastriano will meet with the January 6 committee as the panel’s lawmakers look at his own actions around the attack on Congress, when he and other Trump supporters descended upon Washington DC in an effort to halt the certification of the election.

Read more from The Independent’s Eric Garcia:

The ban on assault-style weapons including the AR-15 expired in 2004, during the height of popular sentiment for America’s military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where conflicts quickly popularised both the military-grade style of weaponry and tactical gear as well as the desert-style camouflage that surged onto the scene of casual military memorabilia and gear collections.

The weapon used in recent tragedies in Uvalde, Buffalo an elsewhere has even some gun owners rethinking their role in spreading ownership of assault rifles.

Read more from The Independent’s John Bowden:

Ted Cruz lashed out over the weekend at his fellow Republicans like Texas Lieutenant Gov Dan Patrick for withdrawing from appearances at an NRA convention in their home state following the mass shooting in Uvalde.

“I was disappointed to see so many others make the decision not to be there. In part because the media narrative that comes out of horrific crimes, horrific mass murders within seconds, the media immediately wants to politicize them and use them to advance their longstanding political agenda that they had moments before the murder occurred,” he argued on his podcast.

Read more from The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg:

Republicans who were in contact with the White House during the deadly January 6 attack on Congress are standing by their statements calling for the president to take charge and call off his supporters, telling CNN that the ex-president was “derelict” in his duty to act in that moment.

The stunning condemnations come as many of the party’s most prominent leaders, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, remain loyal to the former president.

“I thought there was only one person who could stop it and that was the President,” one lawmaker described by CNN only as a “senior Republican” told the network. “I don’t know that I can think of another situation that was as grave for the nation, or as affecting for the nation, where the President didn’t say something.”

The Biden administration has ended the Trump-era ban on US direct travel to Cuba, a move first announced last month that is part of a readjustment of the US’s policies towards Cuba, the socialst Caribbean nation.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the action was taken “in support of the Cuban people, and in the foreign policy interests of the United States”. Cuba’s foreign ministry responded by condemning the ongoing US trade embargo, which is responsible for Cuba’s inabilty to import many goods from abroad.

Read more in The Independent from Alisha Rahaman Sarkar:

Donald Trump unleashed his latest attack against Liz Cheney on Saturday, telling a crowd in Jasper, Wyoming to vote for her primary challenger Harriet Hageman.

While doing so, he condemned the congresswoman for her service on the January 6 commission, the House select committee investigating the deadly attack on the United States Congress.

“As one of the nation’s leading proponents of the insurrection hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical partisan narrative,” Mr Trump protested to his followers.

Read more from The Independent’s Eric Garcia:

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote an op-ed in Fox News calling for action on gun violence as he begins bipartisan negotiations with Republican senators.

Mr Murphy, who was sworn in weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, is the most outspoken Democratic senator when it comes to gun safety. Last week, after Salvador Ramos shot and killed 21 people in Uvalde, Texas, Mr Murphy gave a floor speech imploring the Senate to act.

Continue reading the fully story from Eric Garcia below.