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In a new letter, an N.R.A. vice president said the troubled group needed to rebuild trust with Donald J. Trump and his inner circle.
Dec. 4, 2024Updated 9:26 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald J. Trump has “lost faith” in the National Rifle Association, according to a top official at the gun organization, who argued in a recent letter to fellow board members that the N.R.A. needed to regroup so that it could help protect the Republican Party’s new edge in Congress in the midterm elections in 2026.
Bill Bachenberg, the group’s first vice president and a staunch Trump ally, also told fellow board members that during this year’s election Mr. Trump was upset that the N.R.A. had not committed to doing more to help him win. And Mr. Bachenberg wrote that during a conversation at the group’s annual conference in May, Mr. Trump expressed incredulity that the N.R.A. was paying tens of millions of dollars a year to a lawyer, William A. Brewer III, whose political donations have favored Democrats over the years.
“I can say for a fact that President Trump and his most inner circle have lost faith in the N.R.A.,” Mr. Bachenberg wrote last week in his letter, which was co-signed by Mark Vaughan, the N.R.A. board’s second vice president. “I communicate with them often. We have a tremendous amount of work to rebuild trust with them, just like our members and donors.”
Asked for comment, Karoline Leavitt, a Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, responded only broadly, saying in a statement that “President Trump believes that every American has a God-given right to protect themselves and their family, and he will defend law-abiding gun owners.”
The letter is the latest evidence of the N.R.A.’s diminished political status. Once among the most influential lobbying forces in Washington, it has been reeling after years of scandal and corruption allegations. The group is divided between loyalists to its former chief executive Wayne LaPierre and another wing, which includes Mr. Bachenberg, that wants to break from Mr. LaPierre’s controversial legacy.
Doug Hamlin, the N.R.A.’s new chief executive, said in a statement that because the group had spent heavily to defend itself against a civil case brought by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, it had “to take a targeted approach in the 2024 election cycle.”
