Trump in Washington for meetings with Republican allies

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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio characterized the meeting with former President Donald Trump as “getting the team back together” and providing the state of the former president’s campaign. 

“Optimism, but a lot of work to be done,” Rubio said. 

It was a “terrific meeting,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said. “President Trump was in very good spirits, focused on winning back the White House.” 

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty said the meeting was “good.”

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the mood in the room was “unification, leadership,” which he said was “few and far between up here.” 

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy said he was interested to see how the Trump press conference went, as he didn’t catch it. 

“I was a point for the president to connect with the people who are in this city,” Cassidy said. 

Asked whether there was any talk about Trump’s potential choice for vice president, Rubio let out a laugh and said no.

When asked how the party can be united when some senior Republicans had previously blamed Trump for the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said: “No real Republican with any credibility in the party is still blaming him.”

“He expressed frustration over the recent trial, you can imagine, and justifiably in my view,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said. He said Trump did not bring up January 6.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said former President Donald Trump was “extremely gracious” to the GOP senators he has been known to have a frosty relationship with and even sat between Republican Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and John Thune.

“He was extremely gracious by the way. There was no score settling,” Hawley told CNN.

Hawley, who specified that McConnell sat on Trump’s right and Thune was on Trump’s left, said that shows how much Republicans are unified behind Trump. 

“He is the choice of our voters overwhelmingly. It shows that he is absolutely the leader of the party,” Hawley said of Trump’s appearance. “I mean, you had people who have vociferously opposed him, who were sitting right next to him in the room.”

This sense of unity is a different tone than the vengeful one Trump struck when meeting with House Republicans earlier on Thursday. 

Hawley also said that Sen. John Barrasso gave Trump a birthday card that said 45 and 47 on it, implying that Trump will be the next president of the United States. 

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP0 presidential nominee, repeated a false claim about inflation during Thursday comments to the press after meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington. 

“We have levels of inflation that nobody’s seen for – they say 42 years, they say 53 years and they say 75 years; I would say probably all of them are wrong. Probably we’ve never seen levels like this before,” Trump said.

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. The current inflation rate, 3.3% in May, is nowhere near the all-time US record of 23.7%, set in 1920. Trump could fairly say, in the past tense, that the inflation rate hit a 41-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but it was never a 53-year high or a 75-year high – and Trump did not acknowledge that it has since plummeted. The Biden presidency aside, the current 3.3% rate was exceeded as recently as 2011, far less than 42, 53 or 75 years ago.

Trump also repeated a claim that people are coming across the border in “large numbers” from “mental institutions.” His presidential campaign has not been able to provide any corroboration for this claim when asked by CNN.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has had a distant and icy relationship with former President Donald Trump, said that he shook hands with Trump and that he thought it was entirely positive meeting. 

“I can’t think of anything to tell you out of it that was negative,” he said. 

McConnell also said he and Trump spoke in the room and that there were a lot of standing ovations.  

Trump and McConnell had not spoken since after the 2020 presidential election.

This post has been updated with additional developments.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in Washington on Thursday.

Former President Donald Trump said he had “a great meeting” in remarks after speaking with Republican congressional allies today in Washington, DC behind closed doors.

Trump criticized President Joe Biden and said, “We have a leader that’s being laughed at all over the world,” while making his own campaign pitch. 

“We’re going to turn it around fast. The polls are looking like they’re (going) very strongly for us, and no matter where you look, in fact, a lot of states that people thought weren’t in play are very strongly in play. Some we’re actually leading in, but we have to get elected. We have to take this beautiful place, and we have to make it really something very special again,” Trump said. 

As Donald Trump was ranting about crime rates and so-called election integrity issues, the former president called Milwaukee – where the GOP is holding its convention this summer – “horrible,” according to a source in the room for Trump’s Capitol Hill meeting with House Republicans.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican who was present, made clear to CNN that Trump was “specifically referring to crime in Milwaukee” and not the city itself.

The Democratic National Committee quickly seized on Trump’s comments.

“Donald Trump and the RNC haven’t even bothered to set up a real campaign operation in Wisconsin – they’d rather stick to telling voters how much they hate the city they chose to hold their convention in. Let’s be clear: Milwaukee is not a horrible city – and Wisconsinites should remember what Donald Trump thinks of them when they vote in November,” DNC rapid response director Alex Floyd said in a statement.

“President Trump is correct to highlight the embarrassing mismanagement of elections in Milwaukee, including Kimberly Zapata’s conviction for obtaining false absentee ballots and city officials sending more than 200 ballots to wrong addresses earlier this year. Election integrity in Wisconsin matters, and the Republican Party of Wisconsin is doing its part to protect the vote,” Wisconsin GOP spokesperson Matt Fisher said.

Former President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks at a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Capitol Hill Club on Thursday.

The tone in the room turned serious for a moment, according to a member, as Trump cautioned House Republicans to not go too far on abortion, advocating for exceptions to abortion bans, while the Supreme Court maintained access to the abortion pill mifepristone in an unanimous decision Thursday morning.

In a low voice, Trump advised Republicans to not be afraid of the issue, per sources in room, and said that Democrats are the extreme ones on the abortion debate.

According to members in the room, he also talked about how Roe v. Wade finally put the decision to the states as they always wanted. According to a second source in the meeting, Trump told Republicans to follow their convictions but to be smart on how they talk about abortion in the campaign. He added that he believes it’s an issue that should be left to the states, per the source.

Trump started the meeting with Republican House members by making a remark about Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, now House majority leader, after the 2017 shooting at the Congressional baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia.

“Steve shows great courage. I saw him in the hospital. I can tell your wife really loves you, Steve, because some wives wouldn’t care.”

Moving quickly from topic to topic, a source in the room said, Trump also boasted about his “no tax on tips” plan inside. 

Trump said he is expanding the electoral battleground map to New Mexico, New Jersey, Minnesota and Virginia, per a source. The former president also attacked the DOJ as “dirty no-good bastards,” per another source in the room.

Trump playfully asked Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to be nice to Speaker Mike Johnson, per a source in the room. Greene has tried to oust Johnson. 

Then Trump shifted to doing an impression of Biden. He started laying out a series of differences between him and Biden on the economy. 

Trump also attacked Republican California Rep. David Valadao, who voted to impeach him. “I never loved him,” Trump said, per a member. He bragged about how there are barely any “impeachers” left in the House GOP, per members in the room, and he mocked former Reps. Tom Rice and Liz Cheney.

Sen. Susan Collins speaks during a press conference at the Capitol on May 9.

Maine Republican Susan Collins told CNN she will not be at Trump’s meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill today, citing a scheduling conflict. 

She is one of a number of GOP senators, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who have also cited conflicts. Indiana Sen. Todd Young has refused to say what his plans are, telling CNN that he will not talk about Trump this week. 

President Joe Biden’s campaign is intensifying its focus on Donald Trump and his role in the January 6, 2021, riot, seizing on the presumptive Republican nominee’s Capitol Hill appearance Thursday to launch a new attack ad spotlighting the insurrection.

The campaign recently announced Biden’s endorsements from several January 6 police officers — who are stumping later this week in battleground Wisconsin — and now is unveiling a 30-second ad accusing Trump of inciting the Capitol attack.

“There’s nothing more sacred than our Democracy, but Donald Trump’s ready to burn it all down,” a narrator says in the 30-second spot, which the president’s reelection campaign said would air in battleground states during local news broadcasts on Thursday.

The ad is part of an ongoing seven-figure ad buy in battleground states, a campaign official said.

The spot coincides with Trump’s planned visit to Capitol Hill for strategy sessions with House and Senate Republicans. Although he won’t be inside the Capitol building, it is Trump’s first time meeting with some key Republicans since the attack, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. 

Though Trump said during a rally that preceded the attack on January 6, 2021, that he was planning to march to the Capitol to join the rioters, he did not ultimately make the trip. Instead, he watched the events unfold on television from the White House.