What happened when Donald Trump came to Capitol Hill
Haiyun Jiang
There were traffic cones and motorcades; federal agents and Capitol Police. Protestors screamed and reporters swarmed; the bagpipes brayed and the gawkers gawked.
Donald Trump had come to town.
The Republicans' all-but-certain presidential nominee stormed into Washington on Thursday, captivating Capitol Hill as he bounced from one meeting to the next on a whirlwind tour designed to rally top Republicans –– most notably SpeakerPaul Ryan (R-Wis.) –– behind his unlikely White House bid.
The GOP's most powerful stars gathered first at the Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters, where Trump met with Ryan, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and other House leaders before moving across Constitution Avenue to huddle with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the majority leader, and his top lieutenants at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Afterwards, for good measure, Trump dropped by Jones Day, a prominent D.C. law firm near the Capitol with close ties to his campaign. By mid-afternoon, he was on his plane and gone.
Expectations were low for an instant Trump-Ryan alliance –– the Speaker had made sure of that all week –– and Ryan afterwards refused again to endorse the GOP frontrunner.
“This is a process –– it takes a little time,” Ryan told reporters afterwards. “You don't put it together in 45 minutes.”
But the absence of news hardly mattered. Everywhere Trump went, the circus followed.
Outside the RNC building, banks of TV cameras lined First Street, aimed at closed doors that saw a steady stream of coffee-wielding GOP staffers –– but no Trump, Ryan or Priebus, who all squirted in through a back entrance to avoid the scrum of reporters.
(The only lawmaker seen to enter through the front was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who was not a part of the meeting but did turn some heads when he hopped a railing on a shortcut into the building).
The protesters represented a modest crowd –– tallying two dozen or so, they were dwarfed by the hordes of reporters –– but they compensated in decibels what they lacked in numbers. GOP staffers inside the RNC said they could hear the clamor outside throughout the meeting.
Most protesters were immigration reform advocates who launched attacks both on Trump, for his hardline positions on deportations, and on GOP leaders “for continuing to negotiate with such a racist and a hateful candidate,” in the words of one Hispanic activist.
At one point, they tried to enter the RNC building with a cardboard coffin holding an elephant. Their message was clear: Trump is the death of the Republican Party. (They were refused).
Several Code Pink activists were also on hand. Some carried signs calling Trump a racist, while another wore a massive paper mache mask in the semblance of Trump, dollar bills spilling from his pockets and money-bags clenched in his hands.
A single Trump supporter took a spot on the sidewalk and sang hymns; breaking from time to time only to blow on his shofar. The Code Pink crowd ambled down to drown him out. He blew harder into the shofar.
A single bagpiper roamed the scene, attracting a crowd when he stopped to play. He claimed to be making no political statements, but only that he wanted to play music that might bring some beauty to a volatile scene.
From the Metro station just across the street, Capitol Hill staffers lingered with other unsuspecting commuters, absorbing the scene with camera phones held high.
Rep. Steve Cohen (Tenn.), a liberal Memphis Democrat, was among the spectators enthralled by the spectacle. Of the shofar player he offered, "This guy thinks it's Passover." Of the rest he said, "I'm just gonna watch the show."
Five minutes later, he was gone.
Republican leaders all offered a rosy take on the day's events, with Trump and Ryan issuing a joint statement vowing both are “totally committed to working together” to unite the GOP as the primary season shifts to the general election fight against the Democrats.
“While we were honest about our few differences, we recognize that there are also many important areas of common ground,” they said.
McConnell offered a similar verdict, saying his meeting was “constructive.”
The Democrats, meanwhile, were divided about how to spin the GOP's first stab at unification under Trump. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, issued a statement highlighting the fact that Ryan declined to endorse the billionaire businessman.
“Republicans are continuing to acknowledge that a President Trump would be too big a risk,” her statement reads.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had a different take, blasting a fundraising email under the subject heading, “Ryan embraces Trump.”
“[Y]ou guessed it: Paul Ryan changed his mind and is now ready to work with Trump,” the email says.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who chaired the Democratic convention in 2008, also weighed in, expressing a sense of relief that she never had to manage a presidential nomination process as messy as the one Ryan now confronts.
“We were never faced with something like that,” Pelosi said Thursday.
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Editor's Note:
The ice did break when Speaker Ryan met Donald Trump, but still the inside emotions of GOP leaders are reluctant to accept him as the standard bearer of GOP. In order to keep the GOP unity, Speaker Ryan came to terms with Donald Trump.
News Edited by:
KANWAL ABIDI - 063 News (Global Press Agency)
Executive Editor
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