President Donald Trump has soured on plans for enhanced federal background checks for firearm purchases after speaking with gun lobbyists, an abrupt about-face just weeks after a pair of mass shootings left 31 people dead, according to multiplemediareports.

The Atlantic on Tuesday reported that Trump had spoken with Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, earlier that day to assure the head of the nation’s largest gun rights group that universal background checks were off the table following the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, earlier this month. The mass killings renewed bipartisan calls for stricter gun control legislation, and the president appeared to be considering the background check measure in the days after the shootings.

“We need intelligent background checks, OK? This isn’t a question of NRA, Republican or Democrat,” Trump told reporters outside the White House earlier this month. “We don’t want insane people, mentally ill people, bad people, dangerous people. … We don’t want guns in the hands of the wrong people.”

But speaking to the press in the Oval Office on Tuesday, the president appeared to walk back that language, saying that the country had “very, very strong background checks” already. Instead, he focused on the mental health of mass shooters.

“We have missing areas, and areas that don’t complete the whole circle. And we’re looking at different things,” Trump said. “And I have to tell you that it is a mental problem. And I’ve said it a hundred times, it’s not the gun that pulls the trigger, it’s the people.”

The White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the conversation with LaPierre.

But the NRA confirmed later Tuesday that LaPierre had spoken with the president, referring to Trump as a “strong” Second Amendment advocate. The group is opposed to universal background checks for gun purchases.

“We discussed the best ways to prevent these types of tragedies. @realDonaldTrump is a strong #2A President and supports our Right to Keep and Bear Arms!” the NRA tweeted.