Trump, GOP lawmakers meet in show of 'tremendous unity'

(TND) — Former President Donald Trump returned Thursday to Capitol Hill to rally with Republican lawmakers ahead of the summer convention and fall election.

“There’s tremendous unity in the Republican Party,” Trump, the party's presumptive nominee, told reporters while standing alongside Senate Republicans.

Trump met separately with House Republicans and Senate Republicans, marking his first visit since leaving office.

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that it was their “great pleasure to host” Trump, who he said “brought an extraordinary amount of energy and excitement (and) enthusiasm” to the meeting with GOP lawmakers.

Johnson said they talked about growing the Republican House majority, how they’ll help Trump, and how Trump can help Republicans in Congress seeking reelection.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said they discussed key Republican issues, including immigration and the economy.

“We are incredibly unified in working with President Trump to get him elected so that we can work with him to fix these serious problems that our country faces,” Scalise said.

It's campaign season, and Republicans know they need to show a unified front for voters, said Casey Burgat, the Legislative Affairs Program director at The George Washington University in D.C.

“There's been a lot of dysfunction. There's been a lot of infighting with Republicans, particularly on the House side. And now it is all about rallying behind Donald Trump, knowing that a united Republican Party will be good for down-ballot races,” Burgat said.

GOP members of Congress care most about the unification of a Republican Party and winning in November, Burgat said.

A smaller set in leadership positions are already thinking about how they might implement a Republican agenda should they win.

Burgat said they’ll want to hit the ground running if they win the White House and maybe even both chambers of Congress.

And then there are Trump’s grievances following his conviction in the hush money case.

“Any room he is in, particularly when he knows that he'll receive a broad swath of support, he wants to talk about grievances and hear other people saying that yes, he was wronged,” Burgat said. “Whether it's the conviction in New York, whether it's the other cases, whether it's even, frankly, the election in 2020, which he can't stop talking about.”

Johnson told reporters that Trump talked “about his concern about the ‘lawfare’ that's been waged against him.”

And Johnson noted how they saw massive levels of fundraising in the hours after Trump’s hush money conviction.

But nothing really else matters for Trump and the GOP lawmakers – their 2025 agenda or grievances – if they don’t win in November, Burgat said.

Charles Hunt, a politics professor at Boise State University who focuses on Congress, previously told The National Desk that control of Congress is really up for grabs this fall.

Democrats have a small edge now in the Senate. There are 48 Democrats to 49 Republicans, but Democrats have three independents who caucus with them plus the tiebreaker if needed from the vice president.

Things are nearly as tight in the House, where Republicans have the edge: 218 to 213. There are also four vacancies in the House.

The Cook Political Report has just three toss-ups in the Senate this election cycle, along with four competitive races leaning to Democrats.

All seven of those seats are currently held by Democrats or a Democratic-aligned independent.

The Cook Political Report has 22 toss-ups in the House, evenly split between the parties. There are also 14 competitive House races leaning Democrat and eight leaning Republican.

All House seats, of course, are up for election this fall. Thirty-four of the 100 Senate seats are also up for grabs.

“It's such a tough map (for Democrats in the Senate),” Hunt said. “They have to win everywhere, basically.”

Democrats can really only afford to lose one seat and keep the Senate, Hunt said. They can’t afford to lose any seats and control the Senate if Trump wins. That will give the Republicans the vice presidency and the Senate tiebreaker, too.

Republicans have the House right now by the skin of their teeth.

And it’s gotten even closer since the beginning of last year with members leaving.

“For the Democrats, you see them defending a lot of Midwestern sort of Trump-adjacent seats,” Hunt said. “And then the Republicans, you see them defending areas and Democratic territory in California and New York.”

Will Trump’s meeting with GOP lawmakers on Thursday make a difference in the election?

“No,” Burgat said.

“If you're paying attention to what is coming out of the readouts of a Republican meeting on Capitol Hill six months before the election, you definitely know who you're going to go vote for anyway,” he said.

But it does give Republicans an opportunity to get on the same page.

Even Republicans who don’t love Trump see him as good for them as the name on the top of the ticket.

Burgat said they like Trump’s energized base and what his victory this fall would mean for their policies.

“They know that their electoral fates are tied up together,” he said.