Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump enjoyed an effusive welcome on his return to Washington on Thursday as he rallied support from Republican lawmakers and hailed the party's "tremendous unity" following his criminal conviction in New York.
The former president, who is neck-and-neck with his successor Joe Biden in the race for the White House, was treated to a rendition of "Happy Birthday" from conservative members of the House of Representatives ahead of turning 78 on Friday.
The meeting, followed by a separate afternoon get-together with the party's senate contingent, was Trump's first on Capitol Hill since leaving the White House, and it was his first Washington trip since he was convicted last month on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
"This was a great meeting. There's tremendous unity in the Republican Party," he said after addressing Senate Republicans, adding that he was running "to make America great again."
"We're a nation that's in decline... We're a nation that is being laughed at all over the world," he added. "We have a leader that's being laughed at all over the world, and we're going to turn it around. We're going to turn it around fast."
Trump was even more ebullient at the earlier House meeting, according to US media citing people in the room, as he called out the Republicans who had voted to impeach him after the 2021 assault on the Capitol and called the Justice Department "dirty, no good bastards."
The Republican, who was in Washington primarily for a meeting with business leaders, took credit for the Supreme Court ending federal protections for abortion access in 2022 and railed against Biden's foreign policy.
Since his conviction, Republicans have circled the wagons around Trump -- who faces more than 50 further felony charges -- with numerous lawmakers denigrating a justice system they baselessly claim is biased against conservatives.
House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Democrats of being behind the two federal and two state criminal cases engulfing Trump's reelection bid.
"He raised $53 million in the first 24 hours after the verdict in that terrible, bogus trial in Manhattan. And I think that shows that people understand what's happening here," Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
'He is a fraud' says Biden team
Several centrist senators said they would not show up on Thursday, although Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has not spoken to Trump since berating him from the Senate floor over the 2021 insurrection, vowed to attend.
Trump was impeached for inciting the attack, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to Biden, who beat his predecessor by more than seven million votes.
The Republican faces federal and state prosecutions over his alleged role in a criminal conspiracy to overturn his defeat, which culminated in the insurrection.
"In many ways, President Trump has become a symbol of that pushing back against corruption, the deep state, the weaponization of the judicial system," Johnson said.
The speaker has been struggling however to deliver on Trump's demands for a robust defense from Congress, with a razor-thin majority in the House that leaves him unable to lose more than two representatives for any vote.
Republicans have failed in efforts to impeach Biden, as a months-long, multi-million-dollar corruption investigation has turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by the president, and congressional efforts to rein in the criminal cases targeting Trump have been largely ineffective.
The former president was also in Washington to pitch a second Trump White House to around 90 chief executives at a meeting of the lobbying group Business Roundtable.
"Donald Trump couldn't run a lemonade stand, let alone our country. He is a fraud, a crook, and a failed businessman and president who left America in economic ruin," a Biden campaign spokesman said.
