Former President Donald J. Trump returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a pair of celebratory meetings with congressional Republicans, more than three years after a violent mob of his supporters overran the House and the Senate as he pushed to overturn the 2020 election.
There was no mention of that dark day — Jan. 6, 2021 — as Mr. Trump received a hero’s welcome back in the nation’s capital. In two separate sessions just blocks away from where violence consumed the Capitol in his name, House and Senate Republicans feted their party’s nominee, grinning and clutching hands with him, singing him a happy birthday song and presenting him with a cake, and vowing to use their power in Congress to try to thwart those investigating and prosecuting him.
Long gone were condemnations of Mr. Trump’s conduct, made in the immediate aftermath of the violence, and the vows to move on from him as the party’s leader. Any Republicans — such as former Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — who would have dared speak out against him had long been purged from the halls of Congress.
Even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader who harshly condemned Mr. Trump following the Jan. 6 attack and called him responsible for the violence, bumped fists and shook hands with the former president on Thursday, according to lawmakers who attended.
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In the warm embrace of the Republican firmament, Mr. Trump was recast during his visit as both hero and victim. He has been indicted in three different criminal cases — over his effort to subvert the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents — and convicted in a fourth on charges of falsifying business records.
In the shadow of the Capitol, Mr. Trump ranted behind closed doors against law enforcement officials, according to attendees. House Republicans emerged from the meeting vowing to fight even harder to protect him from various prosecutors pursuing him. They pledged to issue subpoenas and cut funding for law enforcement agencies that investigate Mr. Trump.
“The House of Representatives has a critical role to utilize the power of the subpoena, the power of the purse,” said Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, a Trump ally. “I don’t think we’ve done that with sufficient rigor in the absence of President Trump being here in Washington leading us. He’s going to be the masthead of that effort in the coming months.”
Speaker Mike Johnson urged passage of a bill that would allow a president to move any state-level prosecutions to federal court, a move that would significantly weaken the powers of local district attorneys to pursue a president.
“He didn’t bring up that specific piece of legislation,” Mr. Johnson said of Mr. Trump. “He did talk about his concern about the lawfare that’s been waged against him.”
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There were some signs of resistance.
A handful of protesters, one holding a sign that read “Failed Coup,” greeted the former president on Thursday morning as he arrived at a club one block from the Capitol to meet with House Republicans.
The Biden campaign used the moment to release a new ad, called “Burn,” that reminds Americans of Mr. Trump’s role in firing up the crowd on Jan. 6 before the attack.
“There is nothing more sacred than our democracy. But Donald Trump is ready to burn it all down,” the ad states.
But inside the Capitol Hill Club, the meeting took on the feel of a Trump campaign rally. The former president floated off-the-cuff policy ideas, insulted his enemies and praised those who have praised him. According to various people in the room, Mr. Trump at different points lamented that the music star Taylor Swift would support President Biden over him; insulted the city of Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention will be held in July, over its crime rate; and falsely claimed that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter once told him he and her mother might have been a good match. Some lawmakers interpreted the comment to refer to a romance, while others said it merely referred to a professional partnership.
“It got to be classic Trump,” said Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee. “He doesn’t follow a script and he started pointing people out of the crowd.”
House Republicans gave Mr. Trump a baseball bat from their victory over Democrats in the Congressional Baseball Game the night before, which Mr. Burchett said was meant to show Mr. Trump that his allies on Capitol Hill could deliver wins for him.
“He’s the leader of our party, and the Republicans destroyed the Democrats,” Mr. Burchett said, referring to the G.O.P.’s 31-to-11 win in the annual charity baseball game. “As we should do on Election Day.”
Later, Republican senators presented Mr. Trump with a birthday cake with vanilla icing and an American flag on it, along with a “45” candle — about 30 years short of Trump’s age but meant to refer to his status as the 45th president.
Then Senator John Barrasso, the third-ranking Republican, who hosted the meeting, plopped a “47” candle on the other side, as if to crown him the 47th president months before the November balloting.
“He loved it,” Mr. Barrasso said later.
It was a love fest all around. At one point during his visit with House Republicans, Mr. Trump asked Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who tried unsuccessfully to remove Mr. Johnson from office, to be nicer to the speaker.
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For her part, when asked about the significance of Mr. Trump’s first return to Capitol Hill since the Jan. 6 riot, Ms. Greene complained that the former president faced “incredibly unfair” treatment from the Department of Justice and members of the media.
She said Mr. Trump focused portions of his remarks on policy, and told Republicans he would “love to raise tariffs” and cut income taxes on Americans, potentially to zero.
“Everyone was clapping in the room,” Ms. Greene said. “He said, ‘If you guys are going to go vote on something today, vote to lower taxes on Americans.’”
Mr. Trump later told business leaders at a separate meeting that he wanted to cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, as he tried to do when he was president, though the massive tax cut he ended up signing into law set the rate at 21 percent.
And he preached a unifying message of the party coming together after tough primary races.
“He said, ‘There’s a few of you in the room who might not be happy with me because I’m supporting your opponent, but I will be doing tele-town halls for many of you, helping you get across the line, doing whatever it takes to win the House and win it big,’” Ms. Greene said.
Mr. Trump’s meetings with lawmakers were the starkest examples of how establishment Republicans who distanced themselves from the former president after Jan. 6 have accepted his potential return to office. After years of hoping that someone else could step up to lead their party, establishment Republicans have wholly submitted to the reality of Mr. Trump’s conquest of the party.
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In between meetings with House and Senate Republicans, Mr. Trump visited with dozens of chief executives who belong to the Business Roundtable, a mainstream corporate group whose members include chief executives like Tim Cook of Apple and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase.
Later at his meeting with Senate Republicans, Mr. Trump encountered Mr. McConnell for the first time since the men last spoke in December 2020. Mr. McConnell cut off contact with Mr. Trump after he refused to concede to Mr. Biden following the Electoral College certification of his victory.
In the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, Mr. McConnell condemned Mr. Trump’s conduct in a fiery speech on the Senate floor, but he also did not vote to convict in Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. The decision of Mr. McConnell and other Senate Republicans to acquit would prove fateful, ultimately enabling Mr. Trump’s comeback. A conviction could have led to his being barred from office.
At the meeting on Thursday, Mr. Trump went out of his way to praise Mr. McConnell and the two fist-bumped and clasped hands.
“He twice complimented Mitch,” recalled Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota. “Two separate times, he referenced Mitch and his hard work on behalf of the Republican Senate. It was very cordial, to say the least. It was very senatorial, even with Donald Trump.”
Carl Hulse, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
