Donald Trump barrels into Washington Monday for the first time as the Republican presidential front-runner, arriving like a cross between P.T. Barnum and a Roman general whose crossing of the Rubicon makes senators extremely nervous.
Trump is in town to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference on Monday. Some Jewish leaders are boycotting the speech even as others eagerly await any indication Trump has ideas about Israel that go beyond experience as the grand marshal of a Israeli Day Parade, an unsubstantiated refrain that “no one has done more for Israel” than him, and a controversial commitment to neutrality between Israel and Palestinians.
Trump hopes to make the most of his visit. He is holding a “press availability” Monday afternoon at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, a iconic building that, as Trump often notes, he plans to convert into a luxury hotel under a federal contract.
Trump will receive a welcoming Monday in a meeting at a local law firm with an estimated two dozen Republican lawmakers and operatives. The sit-down was organized by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the real estate developer’s most prominent congressional backer.
“Mr. Trump is continuing his outreach to Washington and there has been an overwhelming positive response,” Trump’s truculent campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told the Washington Post.
Trump’s effort to engage in the sort of party building that presidential front-runners generally execute is boosted by the antipathy his top GOP rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, arouses among Senate Republicans. Cruz has spent years alienating GOP colleagues with what they consider self-promotional stunts.
Still, Washington remains highly hostile territory for Trump. The candidate’s brand of dog-whistle populism may have helped him win GOP primaries, but in the eyes of GOP leaders, it threatens to cripple the party in the general election and future contests, as American voters who disprove of Trump by a two to one margin bring their views to bear.
Trump’s support comes disproportionately from voters in rural and exurban areas who are united by anger at establishment Washington. Lawmakers in the capitol may not return the enmity of those voters, but the candidate is a different story.
No presidential front-runner in memory has ever been less popular with his party’s leaders. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday that he had “a good conversation” with Trump last week, then described how Senate Republican candidates can distance themselves their presidential nominee in the election.
“Donald Trump would be an absolute disaster for the Republican party, destroy conservatism as we know it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday. “We would get wiped out.”
Democrats’ disgust with Trump’s racism, xenophobia, and policy ignorance is mitigated only by their hope his nomination assures Hillary Clinton’s election and perhaps a resumption of Democratic control of the Senate.
Even as Trump tries to court them, Washington Republicans are plotting how to deny him the GOP nomination, and should that fail, undermine his general election candidacy.
A report Saturday detailed efforts by a group of Beltway conservatives to oppose Trump’s bid to round up delegates. If Trump wins the nomination anyway, the group hopes to recruit a conservative such as former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., or former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run against Trump as an independent.
Trump “needs to be stopped,” Coburn said.
