Donald Trump met with Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to discuss “taking back the House” during 2022 midterm elections, signaling the former president’s critical role in the fractured GOP’s future after it lost a Senate majority and the White House.

“President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time,” according to a statement from the former president’s political action committee Save America.

The former president has “agreed to work with Leader McCarthy on helping the Republican Party to become a majority in the House,” according to the statement. “The work has already started.”

Congressman McCarthy travelled to Florida on a fundraising tour this week ahead of his meeting with Mr Trump, two weeks after his second impeachment in the House on a charge of inciting a riot at the US Capitol, endangering lawmakers, police and staff in the building as a joint session of Congress convened to formally approve the results of the 2020 election, which Mr Trump has falsely insisted was “stolen” from his supporters with “rigged” votes.

The GOP leader has aid that the president “bears responsibility” for the “attack on Congress by mob rioters.”

“He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” he said in remarks to the House. “These facts require immediate action by President Trump: accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure [then-President-elect] Biden is able to successfully begin his term.”

Congressman McCarthy later backtracked, telling reporters that he does not believe the former president “provoked” the insurrection, and that he believes “everybody across this country has some responsibility.”

The former president – without access to several social media platforms that have suspending him in the wake of the Capitol attack – has largely been silent in the week following Joe Biden’s inauguration.

With his looming impeachment trial in the Senate, GOP lawmakers are divided over the party’s future in his absence from the White House, with Democrats retaining a House majority and gaining a slim majority in the Senate, while corporate donors suspending campaign donations to lawmakers who backed the former president’s challenges to election results.