'The View' host asks Sen. Chris Murphy if Republican Party is 'going further right'

During an interview late Tuesday morning, "The View" co-host Sara Haines asked Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., if the Republican Party was "going further right" during a discussion about gun violence and whether Republicans were participating in the negotiations in Congress.

Co-host Sunny Hostin asked Murphy if the Republicans involved in the gun legislation negotiations were actually serious or if they were just trying to run out the clock ahead of the midterms.

"Maybe I'm being naive, but I really do believe that the Republicans participating in these negotiations are negotiating in good faith. Senator Cornyn and I were part of negotiations that went into the wee hours of last night and well we are very different in our views we do both agree that we are not willing to do anything that compromises peoples Second Amendment rights. We are focused on keeping weapons out of the hands of dangerous people and I think we can find agreement on that," Murphy said.

Murphy has been involved in gun control negotiations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas school shooting.

He noted that Democrats and Republicans cannot find agreement on an outright ban of assault weapons.

Co-host Sara Haines asked the senator about Rep. Chris Jacobs, R-NY., who dropped out of his reelection campaign after voicing his support for a Democrat-led push in Congress for gun control legislation.

Jacobs announced he was dropping out after receiving backlash from Republicans for saying that he would vote in favor of an assault weapons ban.

"Back in 2018, in Florida, a really red state, a pro-gun state that passed the legislation, not one of them had any backlash politically speaking from voting for that legislation. So now in 2022 we have somebody that has to drop out because of it. Is the party going further right, will this have a chilling effect going forward in these midterms?" Haines asked.

Florida passed legislation in 2018 that increased the gun purchasing age for long guns to 21-years-old, included red flag laws and imposed a three-day waiting period.

Murphy said that the Republican Party was at the negotiating table because there is a "public urgency to act."

"I think Republicans understand that this is good politics. That it's going to be really hard to go back to their constituencies and say that they rejected a pretty reasonable offer to tighten up our nation's firearms laws that's completely compliant with the Second Amendment," Murphy said.

Murphy delivered an emotional speech on the Senate floor after a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde. He begged Congress to act on gun control, asking "what are we doing?"

The senator also urged President Biden to stay out of gun control negotiations occurring in Congress, saying that senators "need to do this ourselves."