Trump to meet with smaller group on Senators in DC
WASHINGTON – With just two weeks to go before the Republican National Convention takes place in Cleveland the party’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump came to Capitol Hill for some very important meetings. He just finished talking with the House Republicans, where Trump to do damage control, blasting the “disingenuous” media for reporting that he praised former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at a rally this week.
Most of the entire Florida delegation of Republican members of Congress were on hand to hear Trump speak.
“I said, ‘Hussein was a very, very bad man, but the one thing he did very well was kill terrorists,'” Trump told a standing room only crowd of nearly 200 House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club.
“The next day a wake up to headlines that say “Trump praises Hussein. The media is totally disingenuous,” Trump said at the closed-door meeting. The Hill newspaper reported that the meeting seemed congenial.
Trump, accompanied by his daughter and close adviser, Ivanka Trump, arrived to the meeting about 20 minutes late.
But he received two standing ovations — once when he arrived and later when CNBC’s Larry Kudlow introduced him
Trump will meet with Senate Republicans after the session with House Republicans.
The meetings come as some Republicans worry that having Trump at the top of the ticket could hurt their efforts to keep the Senate majority. Some Republicans were expected to skip the Trump meetings, though hundreds of House Republicans appeared to be in attendance.
Trump is seeking to unify a Republican Party less than two weeks before its nominating convention in Cleveland.
In his brief opening remarks, Trump boasted that he raised more than $50 million last quarter, and touched on the Second Amendment, building a strong military and securing the border, sources said.
He also offered praise for Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who was in the room. And he talked about the need to win the White House so conservatives don’t lose the Supreme Court.
