NRA’s Wayne LaPierre in uncharted territory responding to El Paso, Dayton, mass shootings

Washington CNN — The pressure is on the National Rifle Association from typically friendly corners – President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress – after last week’s deadly mass shootings in Ohio and Texas. Trump, who spoke with NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre multiple times on the phone earlier this week, told reporters he expects the nation’s biggest pro-gun lobby group to come around. “Arrogantly quiet,” was how one GOP Senate aide described the NRA’s response in the days following the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, attacks, noting the group had made just a few calls in opposition to background checks on the Hill and thought that was sufficient. “This is the first mass shooting that the NRA is kind of on their own,” one former employee with the group’s streaming service NRATV told CNN. “They have a really hard time focusing on what they’re supposed to be focused on.” A messy breakup What’s missing most immediately in the NRA’s arsenal is the close relationship between LaPierre and Angus McQueen, the former CEO of the Oklahoma City-based advertising firm Ackerman McQueen that counted the NRA among its biggest and most important clients for 38 years.