Fox News's Ed Henry in an interview that aired Thursday asked President Trump Donald John TrumpFederal prosecutor speaks out, says Barr 'has brought shame' on Justice Dept. Former Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick MORE if he would be willing to "stand up to the NRA [National Rifle Association] and other Republicans" on gun legislation.

Trump responded that he will do so "if it's not going to hurt a good, solid, great American citizen from keeping his weapon."

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Trump is mulling what kind of legislation to back in response to a seemingly unending series of mass shootings in the United States.

An informal proposal on background checks circulated through GOP Senate offices on Wednesday, but generally received a cool reception. The proposal was floated by Attorney General William Barr, who made it clear it did not have the president's support.

Henry, in an interview conducted near the U.S. border during Trump's visit to California on Wednesday, said the president has noted his high support within the GOP.

"So, are you willing to stand up to the NRA and other Republicans and say, look, we're going to meet — we're going to do something?" Henry said, referring to gun legislation.

"I am, if it's not going to hurt a good, solid, great American citizen from keeping his weapon because they want that and they are entitled to that," Trump answered.

"We have a Second Amendment. I don't want to have crazy people have guns, I don't want to have bad people have guns, but we're going to do nothing to hurt the Second Amendment, and what we want to do is see if we can come up with a compromise and that's what we're working on," Trump said.

Trump criticized Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke Beto O'RourkeJimmy Carter says his son smoked pot with Willie Nelson on White House roof O'Rourke endorses Kennedy for Senate: 'A champion for the values we're most proud of' 2020 Democrats do convention Zoom call MORE's recent comments about confiscating AK-47s and AR-15s.

"Part of the problem that we have is because of Beto O'Rourke's statement about taking away guns," he said. "A lot of the Republicans and some Democrats now are afraid to do anything to go down that slippery slope. A lot of people think this is just a way of taking away guns. And that's not good. Because we're not going to allow that."



"Look, I'm a very strong believer in the Second Amendment," Trump added. "We're going to protect our Second Amendment. We have plenty of ideas."