WASHINGTON (AP) — Three years ago, Donald Trump he had few friends left in the Senate.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the violence. Jan. September 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by spreading “wild lies” about election fraud and trying to overturn his re-election defeat.
After the House impeached Trump for his actions, seven Republicans sided with Democrats and found Trump guilty. He was acquitted, but several Republican senators — even some who still publicly supported him — distanced themselves from the former president. Many were certain that his political future was over.
But that wasn’t the case. Trump is now the party’s presumptive nominee to challenge President Joe Biden. And Thursday, He returned to the Capitol meeting with Republicans — the first such formal meeting since his presidency — with the enthusiastic and near-unanimous support of the Senate GOP conference, including many of the same senators who condemned him for his actions as he attempted to blocking President Joe Biden’s legitimate victory. McConnell shook his hand several times and punched him.
Resentments and memories of the violent end to his presidency seemed to have completely disappeared.
“I think it’s in the rearview mirror for most people,” the South Carolina senator said. Lindsey Graham spoke about the 2020 election. “There will always be tensions there. But I think most Republicans really see President Trump as the only way to turn this country around. And they’re excited about the opportunity.
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The support of Republican senators for the former president comes after years of ups and downs. With few exceptions, senators have never supported it as consistently and enthusiastically as their Republican counterparts in the House. But as he runs again, Senate Republicans are supporting Trump more enthusiastically than ever.
The Senate’s zealous support is partly rooted in self-interest.
Republicans have a good chance of winning the Senate majority in November, and they know that Trump’s support is key to getting there, especially in solidly Republican states like Ohio and Montana, where incumbent Democrats have a hard time. hard to hold on.
And they’re already starting to talk about what they’ll do if Trump wins and they win both houses of Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson attended a Senate Republican luncheon Wednesday to discuss the possibility of tax legislation, among other things, if Republicans gain full control.
“Our ability to secure a majority in the Senate is intrinsically linked to Trump’s victory,” the Republican said. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said after the meeting with Johnson. “So we’re like one team, one vision.”
The senator from Texas. John Cornyn, who is running to replace McConnell as GOP leader when he leaves that post in November, said the party faces a “binary choice” between Trump and Biden.
“There is no Plan B,” said Cornyn, who called Trump “reckless” after the Capitol attack. “I think people know the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates. And for me, I think President Trump is clearly preferable.”
Plus, Cornyn added, “his support is going to be significant in a lot of these states where he’s very popular, where we have Senate races.”
This is not the first time Republicans have come back to support Trump after attempting a clean break.
Arguments and whippings are a familiar pattern. McConnell, for example, fully supported Trump days before his 2016 election, just weeks after the release of a decade-old tape in which Trump was filmed on a hot mic, bragging to a TV presenter famous for grabbing women by their genitals. . McConnell called Trump’s comments “repugnant and unacceptable under any circumstances.”
Many other Republican senators had been cold toward Trump on the campaign trail that year and were outraged by the tape. The senator from Utah. Mike Lee, now one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, recorded a video calling on Trump to step down, saying he was “taking attention away from the very principles that will help us win in November.” The senator from South Dakota. John Thune, who is also running to replace McConnell, also called on Trump to withdraw from the race. But he then walked back those comments.
Once elected, Republican senators publicly united behind Trump, aligned with him on policy, and raved about his conservative choices for the Supreme Court. Most of them defended him during tumultuous investigations into his campaign’s ties to Russia and rarely criticized him, for fear of being called out by the president on social media and facing the anger of conservative voters.
However, after Trump lost his re-election, very few senators supported his false claims of fraud, especially after the courts dismissed several lawsuits and the Electoral College certified the votes. Both Thune and Cornyn criticized his efforts to overturn his congressional defeat days before January. 6, with Thune saying he thought the plan would fail “like a hound dog.”
Trump later said on Twitter that Thune was a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, whose “political career (is) over!!! »
And after the violence in January. 6, few people had nice words to say.
“Count me in,” Graham said in the hours after Trump supporters violently beat police officers and ransacked the Capitol. “Enough is enough.”
But in the weeks, months and years that followed, most of them subsided — especially as several Trump allies were newly elected to the Senate and Trump faced several charges that Republicans view as politically motivated. Earlier this year, most members of the Senate Republican conference had endorsed his third bid for the White House, including McConnell, Thune and Cornyn.
By the time he was convicted in a secret trial in New York late last month, he had overwhelming, united support from the GOP Senate conference.
“Now more than ever, we must rally around @realdonaldtrump, take back the White House and Senate, and put this country back on track,” Cornyn said in a statement.
Although he struck a positive note during Thursday’s Senate meeting, even praising McConnell at one point, Trump’s rhetoric hasn’t changed much. He continues to claim that the 2020 elections were stolen, denounce the rioters imprisoned for violence in January. He said he would pardon them and constantly criticized the judges overseeing his trials.
A handful of senators remain skeptical. Sense. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who both voted to convict Trump after January 1. 6, skipped the meeting with Trump. The senator from Louisiana. Bill Cassidy, who also voted to convict, and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, who refused to support the former president, both were present but did not respond to reporters’ questions afterward.
The senator from South Dakota. Mike Rounds, who Trump once called an “idiot” after saying the former president had not won re-election, also attended the meeting and supported him. He said Republicans had a good working relationship with Trump leading up to the 2020 election, but that “many of us disagreed with some of the analysis that was done.”
Senators will have to “work through this,” Rounds said, focusing on the areas they can agree on.
“We’re going to focus on what we need to do to fix the economy, restore strong defense, try to put out a lot of the fires that are happening around the world and focus on policy,” he said. .