There’s a growing sense among various factions of the divided House GOP Conference that it’s time to put aside their differences as Donald Trump’s presidency gets underway. | Getty Trump makes nice with Hill GOP Republicans begin piecing together a plan to take the reins of power in Washington.

The Donald Trump-Paul Ryan courtship has officially begun.

The two men, at odds for almost the entire campaign, were all pleasantries and compliments Thursday after a meeting on Capitol Hill that would have been impossible to fathom 48 hours ago. It was the surest sign yet that they're ready to leave their acrimony behind and take full advantage of an all-Republican Washington as the Trump administration kicks off.


Ryan gave Trump a brief tour of the Capitol, including a walk out onto the speaker's private balcony, with its expansive view over the National Mall — where Trump will be sworn in on Inauguration Day.

“Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen and we’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people, and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again," the Wisconsin Republican said after their meeting.

Trump thanked him for showing him the "beautiful" view and even felt so comfortable that he announce his policy priorities — border security, the economy and health care reform — to the press in a rare moment of candor about an hour later.

The upbeat, positive setting appeared to dramatically reduce the possibility that Trump would seek to oust Ryan as speaker. Many have wondered if Trump will seek revenge on Ryan for keeping his distance during the election cycle. The two have sparred in several very high-profile disputes on policy and style over the past few months.

But Trump has signaled little desire to replace Ryan with a loyalist, and Ryan's allies are confident he’ll retain his post.

"The past is the past," Ryan said on FOX News "Special Report" Thursday evening after host Bret Baier played a clip of Trump saying he was disappointed Ryan didn't support him more. "This was an unconventional year. He was an unconventional candidate. But the point is, we unified."

Ryan went on to downplay his past policy differences with Trump. Asked if he supported building a wall along the border, an idea Ryan previously panned, the speaker said he supported securing the boarder and that it could include a physical component. He also said he and Trump are on the same page on replacing Obamacare and cutting taxes.

“We want to go big. We want to go bold. We want to do everything we said we would do,” Ryan said. “Now we're going through sort of the nitty-gritty details how to get these things done.”

After his meal with Trump, his wife, Melania and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the speaker lauded Trump's historic win and even parroted the president-elect's stock campaign slogan to "make America great again." Trump then huddled with McConnell and Pence following his lunch, though Pence left after 20 minutes to go meet with Vice President Joe Biden. McConnell said afterward Trump wanted to "get going early, and so do we."

"It was a first-class meeting," said the famously mum McConnell.

The meetings come as Trump and Pence are in town meet with President Barack Obama at the White House. Trump’s surrogates have likewise begun reaching out to a number of top Republican lawmakers as they work to build a core group of congressional allies and get a sense of their priorities.

Republicans will soon control the presidency and both chambers of Congress, leaving them in prime position to enact conservative legislation in 2017. Lawmakers are already talking about repealing Obamacare — a GOP talking point that’s gone from pipe dream to real possibility — cutting taxes and scaling back regulations.

Trump's noisy motorcade arrived on the Hill around 1 p.m. as a group of several dozen pedestrians stopped and lined up behind a yellow taped off area to see if they could get a glimpse of the new president. Toward the end of their meeting, a man in business attire started cursing at some of the onlookers, who he took for Trump supporters.

The U.S. Capitol Police apprehended him quickly, cuffed him and put him in the back of a large white police van as he yelled something along the lines of "we still have freedom of speech in this country. ... You can yell at Trump supporters without being handcuffed and put in the back of a police van."

As Trump walked with his wife, Pence and McConnell to the Senate majority leader’s office for his second Hill meeting, he said the view from the Speaker’s balcony over the mall was “really, really beautiful, thank you.” He declined to answer shouted questions about whether he supports Ryan as speaker or his plans to defeat ISIS.

“A lot of really great priorities. People will be very, very happy. Well, we have a lot," Trump said after a sit-down with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "We’re looking very strongly at immigration, we’re going to look at the borders, very importantly, we’re looking very strongly at health care and we’re looking at jobs. Big league jobs.”

Asked if he would work with Congress to ban Muslim immigrants, a key campaign priority, Trump walked away and thanked the press.

Trump's pronouncements of his priorities came after he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence made the congressional rounds on Thursday, and Republicans began piecing together a plan to take the reins of power in Washington. Earlier in the day Trump repeatedly committed to "lower taxes" as he spoke to reporters while meeting with Ryan.

His declarations presaged an ambitious agenda on Capitol Hill for Republicans that will likely include repealing Obamacare, rewriting the tax code and confirming a new Supreme Court nominee. Trump is itching to get things done and several times on Thursday made it clear he won't be pursuing a cautious agenda. And Ryan and McConnell, for their part, seemed to agree, with the speaker boasting of efforts to "hit the ground running to get this country turned around."

"Quite frankly we can't get started fast enough... whether it’s on healthcare or immigration so many different things. We’re going to lower taxes, so many different things we are going to be working on," he told reporters.

There’s a growing sense among various factions of the divided House GOP Conference — from the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus to the moderate Tuesday Group — that it’s time to put aside their differences as Trump’s transition gets underway.

“The focus is: How we can make sure that the Trump administration is the most successful administration, in the first 100 days, of any administration we’ve seen in modern history?” said Freedom Caucus co-founder Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). “What I think you’re going to see is honest and forthright negotiating … on how we’re going to get regulatory reform, lower health care costs and veterans taken care of.”

The Senate will move more cautiously because Republicans will need at least eight Democratic votes to pass most legislation, barring drastic rule changes. McConnell signaled at a news conference Wednesday that while he will pursue ambitious goals like repealing Obamacare, he also doesn’t think the party has carte blanche.

"I think overreaching after an election, generally speaking, is a mistake," McConnell said. "I think it’s always a mistake to misread your mandate, and frequently new majorities think it’s going to be forever. Nothing is forever in this country."

Edward-Isaac Dovere and Matthew Nussbaum contributed to this report.