The two proposals that Republican leaders seem prepared to allow votes on include an effort to ban gun sales to people on the Terrorist Watchlist, and a revived version of a Senate bill to expand background checks to cover private sales. A previous version was spearheaded by senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey and was filibustered by Republicans in 2013. (This paragraph was corrected for accuracy.)

It’s unclear precisely what sort of Terrorist Watchlist measure will be voted on. The Post notes that this is still being negotiated. By the way, I have serious concerns about the version of this measure that has long been debated. When I questioned a leading proponent of the idea not long ago, he seemed to concede that people on the list could be denied their Second Amendment rights even without being convicted of anything in a court of law, and struggled to explain how they were not being denied due process. Civil liberties advocates have long argued that the Terrorist Watchlist itself is problematic, and their concerns seem well founded to me. (I hope to expand on this in a future post.) However, a vote on expanded background checks is a welcome development. Even if it doesn’t pass, it shows that Republicans are finding it harder and harder to appear completely resistant to reasonable gun regulations.

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Beyond all this, though, what is happening here is that, in the wake of the Orlando shooting, Trump is very much not in control of the terrorism debate. If anything, Trump is moving towards Democrats, rather than the other way around. Trump is reportedly trying to persuade the NRA to adopt some version of the Terrorist Watchlist proposal. Whether or not there is anything to this, he is trying to appear open to the response to terrorism that Democrats are pushing. Meanwhile, the data point that is often cited as evidence that Trump is controlling the post-Orlando debate is mostly nonsense. It has been repeatedly asserted that Clinton caved to Trump by signaling a willingness to use the phrase “radical Islamist,” but this just isn’t true.

In reality, Clinton has repudiated pretty much everything Trump has been saying about Orlando, calling out his Muslim ban, accusing him of trying to further a narrative in which Islam and the west are at war, and, most important, saying this approach actually plays into ISIS’s hands. And, crucially, there are increasing signs that the American people are rejecting the version of “strength” that Trump has put forth in the wake of the shooting. A CBS poll yesterday showed that only 25 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s response to it, while 51 percent disapprove, while Clinton stood at 36-34 — not great, but better than Trump, even at a moment of very raw public emotions.

As E.J. Dionne puts it today:

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Those who lack confidence in the public’s ability to make rational judgments often argue that horrendous acts — of terrorism, for example — will shake the majority from its commitment to civil liberties, pluralism and tolerance. This view reflects a profound mistrust of the good sense and ethical discernment of the average citizen. The paradox is that Trump, who claims to speak for the people, shares this very low opinion of who Americans are….Trump thinks that Americans want to embrace a strongman who shoves aside the niceties of constitutional government. The problem for Trump and the good news about our nation is that he’s wrong. The problem for GOP leaders is that supporters of their party are outliers from the rest of their fellow citizens: They side with Trump.

The basic dynamic here is that Republican voters support Trump’s approach to terrorism, but the broader electorate appears not to be gravitating helplessly towards Trump’s strongman allure. A Gallup poll this week showed that only 38 percent of Americans believe that a new law barring Muslim immigration would be effective in the fight against terrorism. According to figures sent my way by Gallup, however, 53 percent of Republicans and GOP leaners do think it would be effective.

Meanwhile, more polling came out today that shows Clinton, not Trump, is favored on terrorism. But that brings us to our next item.

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* CLINTON FAVORED ON TERRORISM AND IMMIGRATION: Another new CBS poll finds Clinton leading Trump among registered voters nationally by 43-37. Note that Clinton leads Trump on immigration and terrorism:

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51 percent of voters think Clinton would do a better job on illegal immigration, while 43 percent pick Trump…Clinton (50 percent) leads Trump (43 percent) on handling terrorism and national security, while voters divide on which candidate would do a better job on gun policy — Clinton has 46 percent support, compared to 45 percent for Trump.

Yes, it’s true that other polls have shown Trump with an advantage on terrorism. But today’s CBS poll suggests this debate is anything but a slam dunk for him, and may even be slipping away from him.

* SANDERS VOTERS WILL REQUIRE SOME WOOING: Another key nugget from the new CBS poll:

A majority of Sanders voters — 57 percent — don’t think the process for selecting the Democratic nominee this year was fair, though six in 10 will nevertheless support Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in November. Just 8 percent will vote for Donald Trump.

Six in 10 is not high enough. A lot turns on whether Sanders — and also Clinton — take the necessary steps to persuade that majority of Sanders voters who think the process was unfair that the outcome was legitimate.

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* YES, MUSLIM-AMERICANS DO REPORT TERROR THREATS: Trump claims Muslim Americans “don’t report” terror threats, but Reuters talks to law enforcement officials and expets and determines that this is another big fat whopper:

Michael Downing, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and head of its Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said the city’s Muslim community has been cooperative in reporting “red flags.”….Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who has conducted several studies on Muslim-Americans and terrorism, disputed Trump’s criticism. “To claim there is no cooperation is false and defamatory to the Muslim-American community,“ Kurzman said.

Of course, Trump doesn’t actually want this to be true, because it would complicate his hatemongering, so he simply pretends it isn’t.

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* NEW HILLARY AD EMPHASIZES CHILD ADVOCACY PAST: The Hillary campaign is up in multiple battleground states with a new, minute-long biographical spot that recaps Clinton’s early advocacy work for children, describing it as the “cause of her life,” while also reminding voters that she has faced many “setbacks” but continued fighting her way to the job of Secretary of State.

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The ad campaign seems designed to address her negatives — and to sharpen the contrast with Trump, by emphasizing her very long career in public service at a time when Trump’s unpreparedness for the presidency is becoming more and more apparent with every passing day.

* TRUMP LIES ABOUT OBAMA, HILLARY, AND ISIS: Glenn Kessler has an epic takedown of Trump’s latest: that Obama actively supported terror groups. This charge is based on a Breitbart article that asserts a classified memo to Clinton shows that the Obama administration “was actively supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq, the terrorist group that became the Islamic State.” But as Kessler notes:

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This is a relatively unimportant memo, with little information not in newspapers at the time. Rather than showing that the Obama administration is supporting terror groups, the information in the memo demonstrates why the administration was so reluctant to back rebel groups in Syria, often to the annoyance of Republican hawks.

And broadly speaking, Trump’s ongoing insinuations about Obama’s tacit support for terror is only leading Republicans to further distance themselves from him.

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* TRUMP FANS THINK HILLARY IS A ‘B__CH”: Jenna Johnson reports from deep in the heartland of Trumpistan:

At most of Trump’s rallies, there is a palpable hatred of Clinton in the air…when he attacks the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, calling her “crooked” and accusing her of playing “the woman’s card.” But many of his fans have chosen a different nickname for her — one starting with a “b” and rhyming with “witch.” The word is often shouted from the audience as Trump attacks her, murmured in pre-rally conversations and typed on Twitter. It appears on a popular button sold by vendors at many rallies: “Life’s a b—-, don’t vote for one.”

This is shocking, coming from supporters of a candidate who has won the nomination in no small part through his ability to command media attention by abusing everyone in sight.

* AND TRUMP’S SUPPORTERS STILL LOVE HIM: The Los Angeles Times has a fun series of interviews with die-hard Trump supporters who don’t care if the rest of the world is finding him distasteful:

Many of Trump’s core supporters still see the New York businessman as the only leader who can salvage the country as they know it….Trump’s appeal among this group of fewer than 1 in 3 registered voters…taps into the deeper social and economic changes disrupting the country….For all the hand-wringing in Washington that Trump needs to attract a broader swath of the electorate, Trump and his backers appeared to have little interest in that approach.