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Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) accused President Obama by taking the low road with his press conference after yesterday’s gun-control amendment votes.
“The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill,” Obama said in a long denouncing of his opponents in the Rose Garden.
“[I] say this more with sadness than anger — I watched the president of the United States say it was a pretty shameful day for Washington on the national news. That was yesterday. And I agree but for different reasons than the president himself articulated,” Cornyn said today on the Senate floor.
“When good and honest people have honest differences of opinion about what policies our country should pursue when it comes to the Second Amendment and gun rights and mass gun violence, the president of the United States should not accuse them of having no coherent arguments or caving to the pressure,” he said. “The president could have taken the high road, could have said, ‘Ok now that we have been unsuccessful in these measures, let’s move on to area where we know there is consensus, and that has to do with the mental health element in so many of these mass gun tragedies.’ But instead, he chose to take the low road. And I agree with him, it was a truly shameful day.”
Cornyn said he’s not beholden to gun-rights lobbyists, but to his constituents.
“And no, those of us who did not agree with the president’s proposals are not being intimidated, as he said yesterday. And it’s false — it’s absolutely false to say it comes down to politics, as he said,” the senator continued.
“Instead of calling the president names and taking the low road, like he did yesterday, and chastising my fellow senators for their good-faith disagreement and the best policies to pursue in order to make sure these families’ loss was not in vain, I’m here to ask for his help. I’m here to ask for every Members’ help, to try to make sure that we actually continue to look for measures that we might be able to get behind to actually make things better, that would have offered up a solution to some of these problems.”
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