Inside Politics With Manu Raju: 'Inside Donald Trump’s Gripe-Filled Closed-Door Meeting With House GOP'

Source:CNN talking about 34 time convicted felon Donald J. Trump's visit to Capitol Hill. Hopefully they searched him first to make sure he wasn't packing. Even his mouth is a dangerous weapon.

Source:The New Democrat

"Former President Donald Trump led House Republicans through a gripe-filled closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, airing grievances about his legal and electoral challenges, attacking his critics in the room, and only briefing addressing policy matters like abortion and taxes, according to multiple GOP lawmakers in the room."

From CNN

"Former President Donald Trump led House Republicans through a gripe-filled closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday, airing grievances about his legal and electoral challenges, attacking his critics in the room, and only briefly addressing policy matters like abortion and taxes, according to multiple GOP lawmakers in the room.

In his first time returning to the Capitol campus area since leaving office after the January 6, 2021, riot, the former president met with lawmakers for over an hour.

In between rants about Taylor Swift and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump went after his detractors – those who have since lost their seats and some who were in the room – as he warned Republicans to not be afraid of the hot button issue of abortion.

In a sign that the former president is reveling in how the party has fallen in line behind him, Trump bragged that most of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him were no longer in office and singled out one of the remaining two GOP lawmakers left: GOP Rep. David Valadao of California.

“I never loved him,” Trump said of Valadao, according to a GOP member.

As a number of House Republicans find themselves in competitive primary races, the former president said he wanted to do tele-town halls, but acknowledged his help would not be welcomed by some, given that he had endorsed their primary opponents.

Trump did not shy away from acknowledging the bad blood between House Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who unsuccessfully tried to oust Johnson against Trump’s wishes. The former president playfully asked Greene, a staunch ally of his who he strongly supports, to be nice to the speaker.

“He’s always so sweet, recognizing me, and he said ‘are you being nice to Speaker Johnson?’ He was joking. And I said ‘eh,’” as she gestured with her hands. “He said ‘OK be nice to him’ and I nodded my head,” she added.

Johnson, after the meeting, said the former president told him that he was doing “a very good job” and that he plans to be “fully prepared” to implement Trump’s plans if he wins in November.

The former president’s conviction also hung heavy over Thursday’s meeting.

Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill immediately sprung into action following the guilty verdict –proposing to defund the Department of Justice and even shut down the government. House Republicans voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress on Wednesday. And one legislative proposal Republican leaders are now actively pursuing is a bill that would allow current and former presidents to move state-level cases to federal court. The legislation passed out of committee last September, but GOP leaders only started formally whipping the bill this week – on the eve of Trump’s Capitol Hill visit and two weeks after his conviction.

In his meeting with GOP lawmakers, Trump called the Department of Justice “dirty no good bastards,” according to another source in the room.

GOP Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma said the former president expressed he was “gravely concerned” about the federal government being weaponized.

In a news conference after the meeting, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said that the former president’s felony convictions have only energized the party that will propel them to victory in November.

“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, I think, again, it’s only given him even more energy,” Emmer said. “And what he did for us upstairs just now is, he showed us that energy and he showed us that positive outlook, despite all the garbage they’ve been throwing at him with their lawfare and their nonsense.”

From CNN

"I just have to start off by saying: the balls of some people. I mean here's the guy who led the 2021 insurrection on Congress and Senate Minority Mitch McConnell who was leading the Senate Republicans back in 2021 as well, welcomes him back to the U.S. Capitol to talk his conference 42 months later. Not so much on Mitch McConnell, but Donald J. Trump literally visiting the scene of his crimes at a place he hasn't been to in perhaps 4 years, when he was still President of the United States." 

From The New Democrat

If you are a Gen-Xer like me, or are older, you remember the daily, syndicated talk show genre of the 1990s, when someone like a Geraldo Rivera or Jenny Jones, would bring on the strangest, craziest people that they could possibly find, (unless they were just actors) and they would just let those folks rant and tell their audience about everything that sucks in their world. That is what a Donald J. Trump speech is like right now. 

A DJT speech is not just one of those self-interviews that you see on some so-called reality TV show, but he's like a one-man, syndicated talk show, whose given a huge platform to talk about everything that sucks in his life and the world. 

And before someone gives me their impression of Captain Obvious and tries to point out that Donald J. Trump is a presumptive Republican nominee for President and perhaps I shouldn't talk about him like he's a nationally, syndicated, daily, joke, I'm just describing the way he presents himself to the public. 

On a day where both House and Senate Republicans were hopefully trying to get behind some unifying, Republican, national, agenda, that he and Congressional Republicans could run together on, DJT shows them his very own nationally, syndicated, daily talk show, that's all about himself and everything that sucks in his world.