Trump Links Gun-Sale Background Checks and Immigration Overhaul

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump proposed combining stricter background checks for gun purchases with "desperately needed immigration reform" after the weekend deaths of 29 Americans in mass shootings in Ohio and El Paso, Texas.

Trump, who faces charges that his anti-immigrant rhetoric helped incite the El Paso shooting, called for “marrying” a bipartisan effort to strengthen background checks with unspecified changes to immigration law.

“We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!' Trump said Monday on Twitter.

The comments are a sign that the president could seek to deflect criticism that he and fellow Republicans have opposed stricter gun laws -- despite a spike in mass shootings -- by conditioning Democrats' demands for action on background check legislation on immigration measures they oppose, such as funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“Perhaps more has to be done,” Trump told reporters Sunday, adding that he'd say more about the attacks on Monday. He's scheduled to deliver remarks at 10 a.m. in Washington.

Democrats are demanding the Republican-controlled Senate interrupt its August recess to pass background check legislation similar to a measure defeated in 2013 after a shooter killed 20 first graders and six staff members at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Authorities are investigating a possible link between the suspected El Paso gunman who opened fire at a Walmart store a few miles from the Mexican border, killing 20 people, and an online manifesto that complained of a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas.

Seven Mexican citizens were among the victims of the attack, which is being investigated as domestic terrorism. Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the shooting an act of terrorism and said he would travel to El Paso on Monday.

Only four days before the shooting, the National Cathedral in Washington rebuked the president for verbal attacks on minority lawmakers and the cities they represent that have been called racist. “Violent words lead to violent actions,” the cathedral's religious leaders said in their unusual statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kasia Klimasinska at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net, Kathleen Hunter, Karl Maier

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