Donald Trump got his 78th birthday present a day early  a handshake from his longtime bitter critic, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, encapsulating the Republican Party’s complete submission to its presumptive presidential nominee.The twice-impeached 45th president and newly convicted criminal was back on Capitol Hill Thursday for the first time since his supporters beat up police officers and smashed their way through the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A rendition of “Happy Birthday” from House Republicans contrasted with the cries from more than three years ago to hang Mike Pence” from Trump’s mob as they acted on his plea to “fight like hell after weeks of promoting false claims about election fraud. Keen to please their champion and create an optimistic omen for November, House members paid tribute to the ex-president with a bat and game ball they won after trouncing Democrats in the annual congressional baseball game Wednesday. There was a distinct impression of subordinates paying homage to a strongman leader.

But the most striking image from the day was a handshake between McConnell and the ex-president captured in a photo by Doug Mills of The New York Times that sums up an era. The veteran Kentucky senator has never hidden his disdain for Trump, though he has always sought to preserve his own power and didn’t take steps to convict him in Senate trials after his two impeachments. The dislike has been mutual, with the former president blasting McConnell as “the old crow” at rallies and making racist comments about McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

On Thursday, after meeting Trump for the first time since that day of infamy, he lauded their “entirely positive” encounter, during which the former president clasped McConnell’s hand in both of his. It would strain credulity that McConnell has shed his private contempt for the ex-president. But he told reporters who asked him about their meeting: “I can’t think of anything to tell you that was negative.

The exchange between McConnell and Trump was an apt emblem for a day that Trump choreographed to show a coming together in his party  despite the thousands of votes cast in GOP primaries for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for months after she suspended her campaign. (CNN)…[+]