tonight, donald trump visits capitol hill for the first time since january 6. while president biden signs a 10 year defense agreement with ukraine. then the supreme court rejects a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone. plus, what happened today when donald trump made his election pitch to america's top ceos? as "the 11th hour" gets underway on this thursday night. good evening once again, i am stephanie ruhle and we are now 145 days away from the election. this weekend will mark exactly 9 years since donald trump came down the escalator and announced he was running for president and today it became clearer than ever that in those nine years he has been able to take complete control of what was known as the republican party. trump was on capitol hill today to meet with his allies in congress. it was the first time he's been on the hill since his supporters attacked the capital to try to overturn the 2020 election. as the new york times puts it, trumps visit today was an opportunity for him to flex his dominance over a political and business establishment that has been forced to come to terms with him. here is my colleague ali vitali with more. >> a great meeting. >> reporter: tonight, former president trump back on capitol hill for the first time since the january 6 attack by his supporters. >> we agree on just about everything and we work it out. >> reporter: a pep rally of sorts for the likely gop nominee, speaking behind closed doors. >> there is tremendous unity in the republican party. we want to see borders. we want to see strong military. we want to see success for our country and we don't have success right now. >> reporter: among the signs of mr. trump's success rallying has a party, the attendance of mitch mcconnell who has not spoken to the president in four years. he sharply criticized mr. trump, calling him practically and morally responsible for january 6, but has since endorsed him. >> we had a good meeting. >> reporter: also there, potential vp pick senator marco rubio. >> at the end of the day we want to win elections. we are in politics. >> politico reports that trump already made a big private demand of speaker mike johnson. he reportedly called the speaker to get his help doing guess what? overturning his new york conviction. elsewhere on the hill trump allies on the judiciary committee held a meeting on the manhattan d.a.s office and trumps conviction. here is what one democrat had to say about his republican colleagues. >> a show of hands for anyone in the room who hung out with a felon today. hey guys, you probably want to get your hands up. you are hanging out with convicted felon donald trump. i don't think anyone on our side did. that is why we are here. >> while all this was going on president biden was overseas at the g7 signing a massive security deal to help ukraine in its fight against russia. with that let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel. peter baker joins us, chief white house correspondent for the new york times. jennifer palmieri is here. and former democratic congressman conor lamb from pennsylvania. jennifer, a lot happened. djt returned to washington. what stood out to you? >> it is ever since the conviction came in, it is like the house republican leadership has said what can we do to help you, right? what can we do to enable this man who is now a convicted felon to go ahead and capture the republican nomination, to be the president of the united states. let's invite you to come to congress. let's make it be remote or something for the convention, because he might be in prison. we don't know where he will be because the sentencing is july 11. at every turn let me take whatever step the speaker can take to overturn the conviction. it is what can we do to enable your rise to power? just as speaker johnson helped him try to overturn the election on january 6. >> you experienced the january 6 attack firsthand. what was it like to see donald trump returned to the capital and be welcomed by former colleagues of yours who were running for their lives that day? >> i just think it must be so humiliating for them, deep down. obviously they would never admit it, but for the republicans who were there and were in a sense victims of his crimes as well as accomplices. some people were probably both. he let them demonstrate such control of them and their agenda. when you are a house member you are up close and personal with your constituents every weekend if you are doing your job and i think it would be so humiliating for them to look average, ordinary people in the face who were horrified by january 6 and who work hard at the job every day without committing crimes or treating people the way trump does and try to pretend you are anything like a representative. that is not how they are acting when they let him show up and do that to them. >> peter, i was thinking immediately after january 6 when you saw lindsey graham and mitch mcconnell with aggressive statements. basically at that moment trying to wash their hands, their party, of donald trump. now standing right next to him. have we ever seen a single person have such total control of one of our political parties as donald trump has over the gop? >> i don't think so, not in modern times. i don't think reagan had control of the republican party in the same way or bill clinton nor barack obama. i don't think there is any president i can think of who dominated their party to the point that there is no dissent allowed. anybody who stood up against them or disagreed on anything were essentially cast out of the party. anyone donald trump does not like is called a republican in name only. not loyal to him, therefore not loyal to the party. in some ways not loyal to him, not loyal to the country, because he frames that that way that he represents the country and anybody who stands up to him is somehow treasonous. he said that. he said that of mark milley, former chairman of the joint chiefs. not a partisan figure but he said that mark milley may deserve execution because he was not loyal enough to him and you are right, there is no modern parallel in our historic record to compare it to and i think it is remarkable that here we are eight years later and it is as powerful in that party as it was back then and even in some ways more powerful. >> donald trump reportedly, jennifer, has been pushing mike johnson to help get his conviction overturned in new york. meanwhile today president biden made it clear. he said last week it would not pardon his son and now he said he would not commute his sentence. how clear is the contrast between these two men when it comes to the rule of law and justice? >> you know a big reason why president biden is still trailing in the polls is because if you don't pay attention to the news you are not backing biden. that means his biggest problem is breaking through. i think this story line, tragic for the biden family, but i think it has really broken through and the timing could not be more perfect in terms of contrast. donald trump is convicted one week. two weeks later the president's son is convicted -- for the 10% of americans were still undecided who are paying attention to the world and they hear that the justice department prosecuted the president's son and convicted him of a crime. he could possibly go to jail for a long time. >> and donald trump was begging for it. where's hunter? across their chests. >> now i think it is a big deal because it really undercuts the argument from the other side. both things can't be true. for the president it is really hard for him to say i won't pardon my son. i will not commute his sentence. it is also coming through that biden is a decent guy and a nice and great father. jill flies back and forth to europe to be with hunter in the courtroom. biden goes to wilmington to make sure that we all see him hug his son so america knows there isn't any shame here and he is proud of his son and his recovery. it is an important distinction in terms of obeying the law and standing by the rule of law. it undermines trump and his best argument that this is reg. then you also see that biden is a decent guy and it is such a big story that it is the kind of thing permeating everything. you see it on tiktok and social media so that most of america is aware of this. >> according to the washington post, during today's meeting donald trump called the justice department, and i quote, dirty, no good -- the party of law and order, they are okay with that? >> yeah, they are because they believe the lies that he has been telling them. that is what january 6 was all about. when trump uses his enormous megaphone to tell conspiracy theories and other lies to these people, they believe it and act on it. he has been saying that about the justice department for years so no one will believe it if he does get convicted of the serious federal crimes he has yet to be tried on. and all for what? he is in the news for one thing and it is not jobs programs or anything good for america. it is to cut the corporate tax rate by an additional 1%. there has to come a point where that is not worth it even to the people who care about that kind of thing. >> to be clear the last time he did it we heard from ceos like jamie dimon saying we would take the tax cut, it is more than we were asking for. last time around they wanted 30 or 28% and trump gave them 21 to make sure they stayed in his corner. peter, sources are telling nbc news that the rnc is preparing for the possibility of a convention without donald trump there, because he might not be able to attend depending on his sentence or he might not choose to show up. you have covered these conventions. what in the world would that be like and what does it say that republicans even have to make these plans? >> look, donald trump according to punch bowl news told the congressman today that milwaukee, the site of his own republican convention is a horrible city. he doesn't want to go because it is a terrible place. that is not usually what a potential nominee says. usually you try to appeal to the people in a state that you have chosen for a convention. wisconsin is an important battleground state, so it would not further the effort to win this battleground state in the fall. it is possible he might not go. you can't tell with him. everything is always up in the air. i think it is likely the sentence he gets, whatever it is will probably be suspended ending appeals. it is not likely he will be behind bars or anything like that. some discussion of home detention in mar-a-lago but i think it is not likely that will take affect right-of-way. he will be able to come if he wants to. the question is if he wants to. if for some reason they think he might not come that tells you a lot about their thinking about wisconsin and where it is going in the fall. >> the city of milwaukee has become donald trump's new -- country. the mayor had a clever response to the former president. watch this. >> donald trump wants to talk about things he thinks are horrible. all of us lived through his presidency, so right back at you, buddy. i would say that. look, obviously donald trump is wrong about something again. i find it kind of perplexing and i find it strange that he would insult the largest city in wisconsin because he is running for president and wants to win the election. so to insult the state that is hosting the convention i think is kind of bizarre. kind of unhinged in a way. >> clearly this was a screwup. even fox news was trying to clean it up and saying how much he loves milwaukee. >> what is there to clean up? >> do you think this can hurt him? >> wisconsin matters a lot. it is one of the states not trending his way. one of the three where biden is generally up or at least tied to. so it is a problem for him and milwaukee, he is trying to appeal to black voters. milwaukee has a high black population, so in the context to say that it is a horrible place, that is a damaging thing to say and if he doesn't go, i could see him choosing not to go to the convention and maybe just hang out at mar-a-lago and make people come down there. >> florida in july, wonderful. >> but do it in a different way. you know he does not like to have to leave the comfort zone where he is not really wanted. >> where it is literally a swamp in july. the man wants to drain the swamp. come on down. i want to list a few of the things donald trump did not do in the last month or the last week. he did today. we walked through it. he bashed the largest and most popular city in a must win swing state and he was not done. he then suggested moving from our current tax system to an all tariff system as his way to raise revenue, which is completely bananas. where did he do it? on capitol hill, ground zero for the insurrection, where he is considering pardoning every january 6 rioter. none of these actions are what a serious candidate for president would do. can you explain this? >> well, i think he looks at political strategy very differently than you do and most of us do. he is trying to demonstrate his power. i always think with him that he says the most ridiculous things he can think of and he would choose to do it in a setting like capitol hill because then he gets to watch all of these people who know better pretend like he is speaking the truth or it is not that bad or he didn't really mean what he said. you see j.d. vance behind him and some of those pictures, so close that he could probably literally lick his boots if he wanted to. it is a demonstration of power i think and ultimately he thinks that is what will get him elected. that people think he exudes power and strength and this is a way of showing that. i think the american people are better than that and will see through it again. >> there is a great deal of power and strength in italy right now. the g7 meeting going on. peter, president biden on that stage making an agreement, a 10 year defense agreement with ukraine. how big of a deal is it? >> look, this is the american effort to try to get around the fact that ukraine would like to join nato and the biden administration does not think that is appropriate right now. because we will not give them membership, with the president will give instead is a promise that we are with you, that the united states is with you and we will continue to help defend you and it will last beyond the next couple of years. the trick is that it is not a treaty. it will not be ratified by the senate. because it is not ratified by the senate the next president could come along and threw it out the window. we saw that when donald trump took over last time. he throughout the iran nuclear accord and the paris climate accord. there is obviously very important symbolism in this and in the sense of demonstrating resolved under the current administration. it all comes down to november. vladimir putin knows this. he's watching. he understands our politics. he understands if he can wait this out until november and see another president, a president who is nothing but friendly to him in donald trump, there is a chance he can still win this war that he has not one until now. everything is on the line for ukraine when it comes to the november election as well. >> all right, thank you all so much. when we return, the supreme court sidesteps a major abortion bombshell as republicans again vote to block a bill that would have protected reproductive rights. and later, former president trump tries to expand support with corporate america, but is big business ready to hop back on the trumpet train? 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