President Trump is absent from the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Houston this weekend, the second year running he has passed on the gathering, and the no-show is drawing fresh attention to the organization's diminished financial and political standing inside the Republican coalition.

The four-day meeting, held April 16, 19, was expected to draw roughly 70,000 attendees, NRA Director of Public Affairs Justin Davis told The Hill. But the headliner slot remains empty. Before the current streak, Trump had appeared at every NRA convention since 2015, a run that cemented his image as the most reliably pro, Second Amendment president in modern memory.

Now gun-control advocates smell weakness. And the NRA, still digging out from a financial scandal that forced longtime leader Wayne LaPierre to resign in 2024, is left insisting the relationship with the White House has never been stronger, even as the president declines to show up.

The NRA says the bond with the White House is intact

Davis brushed off the absence as a scheduling conflict, not a signal. In a Thursday interview he said he was "not at all" worried that Trump's decision reflected waning NRA influence, and pointed to the administration's broader engagement.

"The president is obviously incredibly busy with worldwide affairs right now, and we're incredibly close to the administration. We work hand-in-glove with them on all kinds of two-way issues."

Davis added that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, would speak at the convention in the president's place. The Justice Department did not respond to The Hill's request for confirmation.

That framing, Trump is busy, not distant, carries some weight. The president has been juggling a packed foreign-policy calendar, from brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon to confronting Iran's nuclear ambitions. A busy Oval Office is not the same as a hostile one.

Davis called Trump an "incredible ally" and said the president was "incredibly helpful in everything we're trying to do here, but we understand that he has very important things to do as well." He added simply: "So the administration will be here with us."

Gun-control groups see a different story

Giffords, the gun-violence prevention group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) after she was shot in a politically motivated attack, wasted no time casting the absence as proof of institutional decline. Executive Director Emma Brown told The Hill the situation was "embarrassing" for the NRA.

"It really represents the radical decline in influence that we've seen from the NRA in the last five to 10 years. They are hemorrhaging money. They are certainly hemorrhaging political support."

Brown pressed the point further, as Breitbart also noted, calling it "very unusual for a sitting Republican president to skip the NRA convention." She added: "So the NRA doing their very best to cozy up to this administration is certainly not doing them any favors."

Conservative readers should weigh that assessment carefully. Brown runs an organization whose explicit mission is to restrict gun rights. Her incentive is to portray the NRA as irrelevant, whether or not the facts fully support it.

The numbers behind the NRA's struggles

Still, some of the underlying data is hard to dismiss. A decade ago, the NRA collected $200 million in membership dues. By 2023 that figure had fallen to just $61 million, an independent audit published by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found. That is a nearly 70 percent drop in the revenue stream that funds the group's grassroots operations.

Political spending tells a similar story. The NRA poured $54 million into Trump's 2016 campaign. In 2024, it spent just over $10 million, roughly one-fifth of the earlier figure. The organization still endorsed Trump, and Trump still won. But the financial muscle that once made the NRA a feared force on Capitol Hill has plainly atrophied.

Much of the damage traces back to LaPierre, who faced accusations of spending more than $11 million on private flights and approving $135 million in contracts in exchange for yacht access and free vacations. He resigned in 2024, but the reputational wreckage lingered.

Last year, after Trump decided to skip the convention, the NRA canceled its marquee NRA-ILA Leadership Forum entirely, an event that in prior years had drawn sitting presidents, vice presidents, and top-tier Republican officeholders. That cancellation was itself a concession: without Trump, the forum apparently could not attract a draw big enough to justify the stage.

New leadership, old problems

Davis acknowledged the organization's troubled recent history but argued the page has turned. He said CEO Doug Hamlin "is laser-focused on making sure the NRA gets back on track, and that's exactly what we're doing." He described the current board and leadership team as entirely new.

"The folks who were around or played a major role in those wrongdoings of the past are all gone. This is a new board, a new leadership team."

He conceded rebuilding trust would take time, saying members were "rightfully upset with the wrongdoings that were happening." His pitch was straightforward: the bad actors are gone, and the new team must prove it through results.

"It's our job to prove it to members and our folks who were upset with the wrongdoings of certain individuals, to show them those folks are gone and that there's good actors taking care of their beloved organization now."

That is a reasonable message. But it is also the kind of message an organization delivers when it is on defense, not when it is setting the agenda. Trump's willingness to reshape Republican politics with surprise endorsements and direct interventions shows he has no shortage of energy for events he considers worth his time.

What this means for Second Amendment advocates

The real question for gun owners is not whether the NRA's Houston convention had good speakers or strong attendance. It is whether the organization can still deliver results in Washington when it matters, on legislation, on judicial appointments, on executive action.

On that front, the picture is mixed. The Trump administration has been broadly favorable to gun rights, and Davis's claim that the NRA works "hand-in-glove" with the White House on policy may well be accurate. Having Blanche and Dhillon at the podium, if confirmed, signals the administration has not abandoned the relationship.

But influence in Washington runs on money, mobilization, and credibility. The NRA's dues revenue has collapsed. Its political spending has cratered. Its former leader left under a cloud of financial scandal. And the president who once made the NRA convention a can't-miss stop on his calendar has now skipped it twice running.

Gun-control groups will overplay this. That is what they do. Emma Brown's organization exists to disarm the NRA politically, and every setback, real or perceived, gets amplified. Conservatives should not take their framing at face value.

At the same time, the NRA's own allies should not pretend the numbers are fine. A group that once commanded $200 million in dues and $54 million in campaign spending cannot coast on goodwill when those figures have dropped to $61 million and $10 million, respectively. The Second Amendment does not defend itself. It needs institutions that can fight, and win, in courtrooms, in Congress, and in the court of public opinion.

Trump has shown he is willing to back allies who deliver and move past those who don't. The NRA's new leadership says it is rebuilding. The burden of proof is on them, and the clock is ticking.

Meanwhile, the broader conservative coalition is learning a lesson that applies well beyond gun politics: Washington power struggles reward organizations that show up with results, not just with history.

Loyalty in politics is a two-way street. If the NRA wants the president back on its stage, it needs to give him a reason to stand there.