Recent public filings have shown that it largely exhausted a $25 million line of credit that was guaranteed by the deed to its Fairfax, Va., headquarters, and borrowed against insurance policies taken out on its executives. Oliver North, who departed this year as the N.R.A.’s president in an acrimonious leadership fight, has said that the organization’s legal bills, running between $1.5 million and $2 million a month from its main law firm, have created an “existential crisis.”
In the midterm elections, gun control groups outspent the N.R.A., upending the usual political dynamics. But the organization still has considerable resources and more than five million members, many of whom overlap with Mr. Trump’s base. And rallying grass-roots support has traditionally been one of its strengths.
Aides have reassured Mr. Trump that the group is still in good enough financial shape to help him, even as his own political fortunes have shifted since the mass shootings.
For his part, Mr. Trump has been caught between opposing political pressures to do something on gun legislation and to maintain the status quo. He has idled in neutral while Congress has waited for a sign from the White House on what it plans to propose.
The White House has also been sending mixed messages on its intentions. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and a senior White House adviser, was still calling around to senators this week, saying her father wanted to make a move on guns even as he faced impeachment. But Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. LaPierre on Friday indicated that his priority may be his own political survival rather than making any strides on guns.
In the meantime, White House aides and Mr. Trump himself have sought to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced a formal impeachment inquiry against Mr. Trump on Tuesday, for lowering the chances of working together on bipartisan measures.
“It’s no secret the president wants meaningful solutions to protect American communities and potentially stop one of these tragedies from ever happening again,” said Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman, “and he’s going to continue doing his job even though Democrats refuse to do theirs.”