“It’s going to be a pep rally,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump ally, predicted before Trump’s arrival.
Trump is expected to make the most of conservative enthusiasm in Congress by stressing that the ideologically divided House and Senate Republican conferences should remember what policy issues they can agree on to hold them together ahead of the 2024 general election, said a Trump campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss advance information about the private meeting.
Trump’s first visit to Capitol Hill since leaving the White House came two weeks after a jury convicted him on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the New York hush-money case, making him the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted.
it is It also marked Trump’s first visit to the U.S. Capitol since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win. Trump was not at the Capitol that day and missed Biden’s inauguration a few weeks later. But Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election are at the heart of some of the federal charges against him.
The Biden campaign jumped on Trump’s return to the Capitol for the first time since the riot, running campaign ads in battleground states on Thursday reminding voters of the violence that day.
“Today, an instigator of insurrection returned to the scene of the crime on January 6th, a crime committed against our Capitol,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign. “From day one in office, Donald Trump pledged to be a dictator and exact revenge on his political enemies, and today he came to the Capitol with the same mission: to dismantle our democracy.”
The expected warm embrace from Republican lawmakers for the former president is the latest example of them once again casting their lot with Trump. Some lawmakers are privately leery of the prospect of President Trump returning to Washington.
House Republicans in particular have vigorously defended Trump, backing him when he appeared in court last month and vowing to use the power of their majority to aggressively attack the Biden administration’s alleged “weaponization” of the government against him.
But it is unclear whether moderate Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 following the Jan. 6 riot will skip the meeting in protest. On Thursday.
Of the 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives, only two current senators, David G. Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington, voted in favor of impeachment. It will be his second vote for Trump. Only Newhouse said he would attend Thursday’s meeting, but he declined to say whether he would vote for Trump in November.
Of the 16 House Republicans who represent districts won by Biden in 2020, five — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania), Young Kim (California), David Schweikert (Arizona), Michelle Steele (California) and Valadao — have not publicly endorsed Trump. While Schweikert is the only one who has publicly committed to attending Thursday’s rally, that doesn’t mean the others won’t.
Eleven members of the House of Representatives that Biden won in 2020 have endorsed Trump. They are scheduled to attend Thursday’s meeting to explain their support, pointing out that voters selected Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee and that they have praised his administration’s record on the economy and crime.
“I know Biden is working hard despite the mounting legal challenges,” said Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican who represents a battleground state of California that Biden won. “My question is, how are we going to take down the Biden administration after we win?”
Many House Republicans across the ideological spectrum welcomed Trump back on Wednesday, saying they were “excited” to hear him. They acknowledged that he may have some work to do to bring together a shaky Congress that has repeatedly failed to reach agreement under a divided administration.
“What we’ve seen over the past year is [former House Speaker] “Kevin McCarthy, it showed that there are rifts in our conference,” said Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York, another at-risk incumbent. “I think tomorrow the president has an opportunity to remind the members of our conference how important it is to stay united.”
After rallying House Republicans, President Trump is scheduled to meet with Senate Republicans in their home states just after noon Thursday. According to an invitation for the meeting obtained by The Washington Post, Senate Republicans were told to expect to “hear directly from President Trump about his plans for the summer and share our thoughts on his strategic governing agenda for 2025.”
Most of the Senate Republicans are scheduled to meet with President Trump at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Senator McConnell’s attendance will mark the first meeting between him and President Trump since shortly after the 2020 election. Senator McConnell broke with President Trump over President Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and the January 6th riots. Senator McConnell has called President Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the riots. However, he did not vote to convict President Trump after the impeachment trial.
Of the four sitting Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, only Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said he was likely to attend Thursday’s meeting. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said he would not attend, and Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska cited scheduling conflicts.
Republican Senator Kevin Cramer said the meeting was unlikely to delve into policy details, but would focus on politics, messaging and unity ahead of the election.
“It will be the first time we’ve all gathered with him since he took office, the first time a large group of us have gathered with him since his conviction. He’s going to get a lot of messages of unity,” he said. It was a very encouraging day for him.”
Fixes
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Trump is the first U.S. president to be convicted of a federal crime; he was convicted of a state crime. This article has been updated.
Theodoric Meyer, Mariana Alfaro and Marianne Levine contributed to this report.
