Randy Kozuch, the executive director of the National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm, offered the gun rights advocacy group’s presidential endorsement to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on Saturday.
The move did not come as a surprise, as the NRA previously endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020. Kozuch made the announcement as he introduced the former president to the crowd at the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Dallas.
Trump thanked Kozuch before addressing the audience. He called gun owners a “rebellious bunch,” claiming that they tend not to vote and encouraging them to change that in 2024.
“Let’s be rebellious and vote this time, OK?” Trump said.
The former president’s remarks were largely reminiscent of a traditional campaign rally, but he briefly discussed the Second Amendment, which he told attendees was “under siege.”
“With me, they’d never get anywhere, and we need that Second Amendment,” Trump said. “ … We need it for safety because the bad guys are not giving up their guns, you know that.”
Trump also warned that if President Joe Biden wins another term in the White House, his “regime” would be “coming for your guns, 100% certain,” citing the president’s “40-year record of trying to rip firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.”
The former president also weighed in on independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who referred to the NRA as a “terror group” in the aftermath of the deadly 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“He calls you a terrorist group,” Trump said. “Can’t vote for him. Somebody said, well, you know, they like his policy on vaccine. The other day, he said ‘No, no,’ he’ll go for the vaccine. He’s got no policy on anything. He’s radical left. He always has been. His family is angry at him because he’s doing this”
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Earlier this month, Kennedy challenged Trump to a debate at next weekend’s Libertarian National Convention in Washington. The former president is scheduled to deliver remarks there, while the independent candidate has been invited to do the same.
Trump and Biden are scheduled to meet on the debate stage in just under six weeks. CNN will host the in-studio event on June 27 in Atlanta.
