White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Monday that the Obama administration would not rule out the further use of executive action to enact gun control measures.
This would allow the Obama administration to circumvent Congress, which is highly unlikely to pass such legislation, since Republicans control both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He previously rolled out executive actions in January 2016.
"Can you say that the White House has never reached legal determination that has exhausted all of its efforts when it comes to unilaterally acting through executive orders and such on gun control? Has it ever reached that determination or is it still looking?" a reporter asked.
"Rich, I'm not going to rule out that the president may at some point in the future take steps," Earnest said. "But I think we made pretty clear when the president announced a series of executive actions back in January that he had asked his team to consider every available option for using his executive authority."
"And those were every available option at the time?" the reporter asked.
"And the president's team pursued every available option, but again, they're also always looking, and if there are new ways to use executive authority to keep the American people safe, the president won't hesitate to use them," Earnest said.