16:28

Sabrina Siddiqui spoke to a number of Trump supporters here at CPAC about what they thought of his speech:

Lin-Dai Kendall, from Fairfax, VA, said she had supported Trump reluctantly during the presidential race, having first backed three other candidates: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Texas senator Ted Cruz.

Her main concern had been that Trump was not sufficiently conservative. But she seemed to have embraced him.

“Right now, I see his agenda and it is my agenda,” she said. “The media and the Democrats have absolutely flooded everything he does with criticism and no quarter to even hear his message.”

She added: “Trump is one of us. He’s flawed, like we are.”

Michael Conners, of Brooklyn, New York, said seeing Trump live reminded him of the former reality TV star’s appeal.

“He’s always a little bit different. He’s a little bit off the cuff — intelligent, funny. Maybe says the wrong thing every once in a while, but that’s just because he’s not a regular politician.”

He added: “It’s not in his personality to back down. If someone attacks him, he attacks back. You’re not going to change him at this point.”

Many of those who took in the remarks — which featured a lengthy, scathing assault on the media that has long been a staple of Trump’s stump speeches — sided with the president in his ongoing feud with the press.

“I don’t trust the media in general,” said Adrian Marcogliese, who hails from Montreal but is studying in the US.

“The polls spoke for themselves when they said Trump was going to lose.”

The media, he added, was more invested in presenting “the information that they view in the best light for their business. And they’ll have their own bias in that.”

Some of Trump’s support came from unexpected corners, such as Dustin Hartl, a 20-year-old student who voted for Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.

Hartl, who attends the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, where White House chief of staff Reince Priebus also studied, stood in the CPAC corridor after Trump’s speech donning a white Make America Great Again hat. He had seen Trump speak at least four times and confessed to disagreeing with some of the president’s signature policy proposals.

“I don’t like the border wall,” Hartl said. “I think it’s a waste of money. I think there are other things we could be putting our money towards.”

But he was nonetheless drawn to Trump for the same reasons he liked Sanders, whose insurgent campaign proved a more competitive challenge to Hillary Clinton that anticipated.

“Bernie came to the establishment and shook it up. And that’s what Donald Trump is doing,” Hartl said.