Trump fist-bumps Mitch McConnell, coaches Republicans on abortion in DC ‘pep talk’
Former President Donald Trump played nice with some of his past GOP detractors and coached Republican members of Congress on how to discuss abortion and other policy issues on the 2024 campaign trail in his first appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving office in January 2021.
Trump, 77, delivered a joke-filled “pep talk” to House Republicans that mixed messaging with policy — as well as gallows humor, sources and lawmakers told The Post after the private session at the Capitol Hill Club concluded mid-morning.
The 45th president then headed across town to National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters to meet with members of the upper chamber before delivering brief remarks on the economy and immigration.
“We’re going to bring back our jobs. We’re going to bring back common sense to government,” Trump said. “We’re going to have strong borders, and we’re going to have people come into our country — but they’re going to come in legally. They’re not going to pour in from prisons all over South America and all over the world.”
The former president also weighed in on tight GOP races against incumbent Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana — pining for “the old days” of “paper ballots” and “voter ID” while ripping early vote-by-mail dates in critical swing states.
“This is an outstanding group of people. I’m with them 1,000%,” Trump added of the Republican senators, some of his most powerful critics, such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Mitt Romney of Utah.
McConnell, one of the last leading Republicans to endorse Trump’s candidacy, had said the former president was “morally responsible” for the breach of the US Capitol building by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, which delayed the official recording of President Biden’s Electoral College victory
On Thursday, however, the two fist-bumped each other after more than three years of icy relations, a source familiar with the interaction told The Post.
“I’ve had a really great relationship with just about everybody here, with everybody here,” Trump said in his public remarks.
House Republicans were quick to dish to the press on the topics covered following their more than hour-long private chat with their party’s leader.
“President Trump reflected on the fact that it is a travesty in our country that you’ve got troops who are on food stamps, who are not even getting minimum wage, when you look at the hours that they’re putting in,” far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters after exiting the all-hands-on-deck meeting.
“And he lamented the fact that we’re sending $60 billion to Ukraine — and we’re not paying our troops more,” Gaetz emphasized. “So President Trump was explicitly a critic of the Ukraine aid and a supporter of the increases in pay for American troops.”
Trump also hit Biden, 81, for not being tough enough on Russian President Vladimir Putin and providing sufficient “lethal aid” for Ukraine, lawmakers and sources told The Post.
He pointed to his administration’s sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany — and Biden’s decision to waive sanctions in 2021 while “killing America’s Keystone pipeline,” Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis told The Post.
To bolster his executive power, Trump last year had suggested that his second term could include executive action to decline certain congressionally approved spending measures, which would overrule the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
House Republicans have already proposed a 15% pay raise for enlisted personnel, whose average annual salary stands at $53,000, according to Pentagon statistics — putting the eventual cost of the proposal at nearly $1 billion.
Gaetz added there was also a “serious discussion about how Republicans are going to talk about abortion in the upcoming election” — with Trump instructing lawmakers to label it as strictly a “state issue.”
“His goal was to do 100 telephone town halls for members to ensure a robust [Republican] majority” in Congress, Gaetz added.
“The enthusiasm is through the roof,” added Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.). “We’re seeing movement — the youth vote, African American vote, certainly the Jewish vote — and we’re seeing now five out of six swing states. Yeah, there’s a lot of confidence in the room.”
Anti-Israel protesters from the far-left group Codepink and other hecklers shouted at the Republicans as they left, with one bearing signs that attacked them for supporting a “Failed Coup,” referring to the Capitol riot.
But the lawmakers were in high spirits as they strolled outside to share their reactions with reporters, despite the 118th Congress suffering from infighting in the House Republican conference — and a recent failed attempt by far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
“He literally turned right to [Johnson] and said, ‘This man is doing a great job,’” Waltz recounted. “And he kind of needled Marjorie a little bit and said, ‘You got to be nice to him, Marjorie,’ and she said, ‘OK, OK.’”
“There is something happening in the country,” Johnson said in a leadership press conference following the meeting. “People recognize right now in this country that this will be the most consequential election, certainly of our lifetimes and maybe in the last century or more in America.”
In another aside, Trump name-checked pop star Taylor Swift and pointed out she still had not endorsed Biden for re-election — and shouldn’t — because he “helped protect songwriters as president,” Malliotakis noted.
“It was hilarious — it was enthusiastic,” said Waltz, adding that the former president still had time to discuss his plans for tax and tariff policies.
“He said that tariffs are a good tool that can bring in a significant amount of money into the US,” Malliotakis added, saying Trump called the tool a “useful way to be tough on adversaries” and “lessen the income tax burden on American citizens.”
“There’s so much at stake with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act [of 2017] expiring next year,” she noted. “Everyone’s going to be paying more.”
“He actually went into how we should use tariffs and the whole world’s desire to have access to our markets as a national security tool,” Waltz explained. “And then he went into a whole history lesson on how McKinley used them, the [1890] Tariff Act.”
“Obviously, McKinley was assassinated, and he said, ‘Hope that’s not any bad luck,’” Trump said, according to Waltz, prompting the room to break into laughter.
Other independent regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission could also be controlled to a greater degree by Trump’s White House rather than Congress, his campaign announced last April.
The former president also reiterated his attacks against the “weaponization” of the justice system, following his conviction last month in Manhattan on 34 counts of business fraud.
“’The trial should’ve been held on Staten Island,’” Malliotakis said Trump joked at one point, noting the small fraction of Manhattanites who cast a ballot for him the 2020 election.
“He said, ‘Look, I’ve got the money and the platform to withstand it, but they start doing this in local elections, you know, suddenly you open the paper and some county commissioner’s under indictment — you’re done,’” Waltz also said of Trump’s remarks.
“He said, ‘Even you guys in Congress or a senator, you’re done. So if this is going to be the new tool and the left’s toolkit,’ he said, ‘maybe I’m fighting back but, you know, this will be really devastating to our democracy,’” Waltz quoted the 45th president as saying.
“Anybody who thought that this president was going to be down after the sham trial, after that crooked trial that we saw in New York — think again,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said in the post-meeting press conference. “It’s only given him even more energy.”
Gaetz pointed out that Trump encouraged House Republicans to use “the power of the purse” and “the power of the subpoena” to deal a heavy blow to the Justice Department — implying his support for Wednesday’s House vote to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for failing to hand over audio recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
“He’s going to be the masthead for that effort in the coming months,” Gaetz told reporters.
Malliotakis told The Post Trump’s remarks on getting the border under control were “inspiring” to members of the GOP New York delegation.
“He really set the scene of what is happening in this country under Joe Biden, the disastrous policies that have allowed for this mass illegal immigration that have allowed terrorists and criminals to enter,” she said.
“Somebody in the audience asked him about the cartels. And he said, ‘We’re going to take these cartels out,’” Waltz told The Post, adding that Trump also discussed former President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback” deportation campaign as a model for his own plan to remove millions of illegal migrants should he be elected to a second term.
Last year, he also floated eliminating birthright citizenship for illegal aliens if he wins election to another term, which critics have decried as a direct violation of the 14th Amendment.
“The message was of a united Republican Party, eager to take the fight directly to Joe Biden and the Democrats in every corner of the country,” Long Island freshman Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), told The Post, “knowing full well we have the issues on our side, especially in places governed by progressives like New York.”
