Donald Trump returned to Washington on Thursday to rally support from Republican lawmakers and the business community following his historic criminal conviction in his New York hush money trial.
The former president, who is neck-and-neck with his successor Joe Biden in the race for the White House, met members of the House of Representatives at a private club near the US Capitol in the morning.
He was due to speak with senators later, as well as addressing dozens of CEOs.
They are Trump’s first meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill since leaving the White House in 2021, and it is his first trip to Washington since he was convicted last month in New York on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Meetings would focus on “securing the southern border, and cutting taxes for hardworking families to bring back the booming economy from President Trump’s first term,” a spokeswoman for his campaign told AFP.
Since his conviction, Republicans have circled the wagons around Trump — who faces more than 50 further felony charges — with numerous lawmakers denigrating a justice system they baselessly claim is biased against conservatives.
The party’s House members face an uphill battle to defend the lower chamber from a Democratic takeover in November’s elections.
Senate Republicans have a more favorable map, and are confident of flipping their 49-51 minority in the upper chamber.
Several centrist senators said they would not be showing up on Thursday, although Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has not spoken to Trump since berating him from the Senate floor over the 2021 insurrection, has said he will attend.
– ‘Economic ruin’ –
Trump was impeached for inciting the attack, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to Biden, who beat his predecessor by more than seven million votes.
The Republican faces federal and state prosecutions over his alleged role in a criminal conspiracy to overturn his defeat, which culminated in the insurrection.
The plan for the meetings does not include discussions of Trump’s legal woes, although the ex-president could bring them up as he presses Republicans to go to war against the Democrats he accuses of weaponizing the justice system against him.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has been struggling to deliver on Trump’s battle cry, with a razor-thin majority that leaves him unable to lose more than two representatives for any vote.
Republicans have failed in efforts to impeach Biden, as a month-long, multi-million-dollar corruption investigation has turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by the president, and congressional efforts to rein in the many criminal cases targeting Trump have been largely ineffective.
The former president is also due to make his case for a White House return to chief executives at a meeting of Washington lobby group Business Roundtable.
Trump’s campaign aides said the meeting would address rebuilding “the American Dream” with middle class tax cuts, “record-setting” regulation cuts, fair trade, energy creation, low inflation, better wages, and a restoration of the rule of law.
The Biden campaign released a statement pointing to Trump’s many failed business ventures and multiple bankruptcies, contrasting the Republican’s record of mass job losses during the pandemic with the economic recovery under Biden.
“Donald Trump couldn’t run a lemonade stand, let alone our country. He is a fraud, a crook, and a failed businessman and president who left America in economic ruin,” a spokesman said.
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