by Daniel WOOLLS
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Like a victorious general, Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill Thursday to meet with Republican lawmakers scrambling to put up a united front behind him as the party convention nears.
But in a sign of the bad blood, if not outright disgust, that Trump still stirs as the presumptive presidential nominee, some key lawmakers found reasons to skip the meetings, one with House members and another with senators.
Scheduling conflicts were the most commonly stated pretext.
And in a statement issued after the meeting with House members, Speaker Paul Ryan had nothing positive to say about Trump — other than to thank him for the visit and what Ryan called Trump’s desire to unify the party.
“It was an important opportunity for our members to get additional information about Mr Trump’s campaign and ask questions about the issues that matter to Americans,” Ryan’s statement said.
“It’s clear that our party is committed to defeating Hillary Clinton and Democrats this fall.”
Trump in turn tweeted: “Just leaving D.C. Had great meetings with Republicans in the House and Senate. Very interesting day! These are people who love our country!”
Trump answered questions for more than 40 minutes from around 20 House members on a variety of topics, said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
“The conversation this morning gave many members of the House Republican Conference the chance to share their policy ideas with Mr Trump and to ask questions to get to know him,” her office said in a statement.
“For many, it was their first introduction, and it was a positive step toward winning in the fall,” it added.
Tense meeting
The meeting with senators was tense, The Washington Post reported, quoting two Republicans with direct knowledge of the session.
Trump criticized three senators who have been critical of his candidacy and predicted they would lose their bids for re-election, the Post said.
The no-shows for the day included Senator Marco Rubio, a formal Trump rival for the nomination, and respected Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose status as a war hero was famously derided by Trump early in the campaign.
Thursday’s meeting with representatives was hosted by Ryan, who will also serve as chairman of the Republican National Convention July 18-21 in Cleveland, Ohio.
It is there that the billionaire real estate mogul — criticized as bigoted, narcissistic, ignorant on foreign and defense policy, and altogether unfit to be president — is scheduled to be anointed the party’s candidate in the November election to take on Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
Trump first met with Ryan in May in a highly anticipated meeting. It concluded with a joint statement in which each pledged to work towards unity, but Ryan did not endorse Trump at the time.
He did, eventually, and has stuck by it, even after describing Trump’s behavior as textbook racist when the mogul said a judge overseeing a trial involving Trump University was biased because of his Mexican heritage.
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