McConnell says he’ll consider gun bills in the fall

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he hopes to consider legislation to expand federal background checks and other gun violence measures when Congress resumes in the fall.

The Republican leader told a Kentucky radio station that President Donald Trump called him Thursday, adding that Trump “is anxious to get an outcome and so am I.”

Republicans have resisted expanding federal background checks for gun purchases, but face enormous pressure to do something in the aftermath of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend that killed 31 people.

The Republican leader is rejecting calls to force senators back to Washington from their summer recess to work on gun measures. He says that would just lead to senators “scoring points and nothing would happen.”