Trump cultivates GOP lawmakers in prep for potential 2.0 presidency

Former President Donald Trump today made his first visit to Capitol Hill since spurring thousands of supporters to march on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, in what became the most controversial day of his controversial presidency. 

He met with both House Republicans and Senate Republicans in well-attended separate events, though a handful of Senate Republicans whose disagreements with the former president are well-known cited “conflicts” with the planned luncheon. 

The enthusiastic reception he received underscores the closer ties he has forged in each chamber over the past few years, despite prominent GOP members initially speaking out about his role in the 2021 attack during Congress’s Electoral College vote tally. It also offered a preview of how Mr. Trump could leverage those ties in a second presidential term to enact major policy changes.

“You don’t put the cart before the horse, but you do have to be prepared to lead,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson in response to a question from the Monitor on the eve of Mr. Trump’s visit. Mr. Johnson is bullish on Republicans retaining the House and winning both the Senate and White House, though polls show a less certain outlook. “When you have unified government like that, it comes with great responsibility, and I look forward to those days and fixing lots and lots of things.”

Coming out of their morning meeting at the Capitol Hill Club just off campus, House Republicans said the mood was upbeat, with a focus on unity and reinforcing “some backbone,” as fiscal conservative Tim Burchett of Tennessee put it.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who threw the GOP into disarray last fall when he led the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said Mr. Trump’s main message was the need to be unified as a party.

“President Trump … made it very clear it’s not just about his victory,” said Mr. Gaetz. “It’s also about ensuring large majorities in the House and Senate.”

Mr. Trump’s visits with congressional Republicans, while in town for a meeting with CEOs at a Business Roundtable event, follow on the heels of his conviction last month for falsifying business records in a hush-money scheme. The trial was based on untested legal theories, which added to GOP concerns about the politicization of the justice system.

Critics say Mr. Trump’s visit is a crass attempt to get congressional Republicans to inappropriately intervene in his legal troubles, including by promoting a bill to move state court cases involving a president to federal court. 

Rallying the troops

For their part, congressional Republicans frame the visit as part rallying the troops ahead of the election and part laying the groundwork for a strong start to a Trump 2.0 presidency. That would contrast with his first term, when he reportedly was not expecting to win, had few relationships in Washington, and got off to a chaotic start.

“We’re going to see definitely a far more honed approach” in a second Trump presidency, says Rep. William Timmons of South Carolina. “He’s going to have just a lot more alignment with Republicans in Congress.”

Endorsed by Mr. Trump, Representative Timmons this week narrowly fended off an effort by the right-wing House Freedom Caucus to unseat him in the South Carolina primary. Mr. Timmons is one of many Republicans who owes their seat in Congress in part to a Trump endorsement. And the congressman’s victory is one of numerous recent examples where Mr. Trump’s intervention muted the influence of hardliners, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s failed effort to replace Mr. Johnson as speaker just six months after the House ousted his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. 

Challenges and consequences

Mr. Trump has perturbed even supporters with his withering attacks on social media, garnering a reputation as mercurial, callous, and demanding loyalty – and exacting revenge on those who defy him. 

His resources and sway with voters have made it hard for Republicans to stand up to him; only two of the 10 House members who voted to impeach him remain in Congress. Those who criticize him rarely do so publicly. 

But Mr. Trump also has had many consistent, vocal supporters. Numerous Republicans interviewed for this piece painted a different picture of the former president as personable, generous with his time, and tolerant of more dissent than he is credited with. 

“President Trump welcomed rank-and-file House Republicans in the Oval Office and the White House, on Air Force One, and the limo,” says Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, adding that as a newer member of Congress, he got calls from the president “all the time” and was invited to Camp David. When in 2021-22 he led the Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy group, he would bring members to visit the former president at his various estates. Such visits, together with his political endorsements, will yield dividends in a second term, says Mr. Banks.

“President Trump welcomed everybody, and it paid off in a big way for him back then. I think it’s going to pay off in an even bigger way this time,” he says. “Our party is unified behind him in a way that I think speaks volumes.”

“A party is a party. It’s not a cult.”

Some critics have raised concerns that Mr. Trump’s cultivation of more allies on the Hill could result in a GOP Congress that would essentially rubber stamp Trump policies if he were to retake the White House – policies that many Democrats warn could be more extreme. 

And indeed, earlier this year he was blamed for torpedoing the bipartisan border bill negotiated by conservative Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, an independent, and Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat.

It’s normal for any new president to press their party’s members of Congress to support key policies, and those members usually comply so as not to undercut the president, says Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

But, he adds, “A party is a party. It’s not a cult.”

Opponents have in fact accused Mr. Trump, who values loyalty, of turning the GOP into a personality cult. But Republicans say there’s a misperception that he demands that people be in lockstep with him.

“He actually can look past a lot of disagreement,” says Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who also benefited from a Trump endorsement. 

Reflexive loyalty or gratitude, or both? 

That was the case for GOP House Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona. Soon after being elected, she was part of a group whom Mr. Trump invited to the White House to encourage them to vote for a GOP immigration bill. But despite it being her first time speaking with the president, she told him her constituents wouldn’t support it.

She worried he would tweet against her. “But as it turned out,” she says, “he likes fighters and people that speak their minds.” 

When he faced impeachment the next year, he selected her to serve on his impeachment defense team.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was among seven GOP senators who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment after Jan. 6. But she pushes back on concerns that the former president has inculcated a reflexive loyalty among congressional Republicans through his endorsements.

“It’s natural that those individuals would feel a sense of gratitude,” she says. But “it doesn’t mean that they’re going to ask, ‘How high?’ when he says, ‘Jump.’”