ON THURSDAY, US President Trump tweeted that he had a “Good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office tonight with the NRA!”

On Wednesday, the day before the meeting with the NRA, Mr Trump had seemed willing to consider gun control, telling senators that they don’t support gun control measures because they are “afraid of the NRA,” and he even suggested “Take the guns first, go through due process second” as a way of getting weapons away from the mentally ill sooner rather than later.

“You have a different president now,” Mr Trump told Democrat Senator Chris Murphy. “You went through a lot of presidents and you didn’t get it done. You have a different president. And I think, maybe, you have a different attitude, too. I think people want to get it done.”

But Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said that while the president supports the Second Amendment and safe schools — he does not support not gun control.

“I had a great meeting tonight with @RealDonaldTrump & @VP. We all want safe schools, mental health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people,” Mr Cox tweeted.

“POTUS & VPOTUS support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control. #NRA #MAGA”

On Friday, speaking for Mr Trump, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that he only supports “not necessarily universal background checks, but certainly improving the background check system.

“He wants to see what that legislation, the final piece of it looks like,” she told reporters at the White House.

“Universal means something different to a lot of people. He certainly wants to focus and improve on the background check system.”