Everytown posted social media messages ahead of the midterms urging support for candidates it calls gun sense candidates. Max Steele, Everytowns senior director of communications, then amplified those posts from his personal account.

ATF Director Robert Cekada replied. Steele then criticized Cekada for answering. On October 3, 2026, Cekada posted from the ATFDirectorRC account that he was on his own time, that he was exercising his First Amendment rights, and that he had answered what he called trash talking and fact twisting.