President Trump waves after speaking at the CPAC conference, March 2, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

National Harbor — At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of about 9,000 attendees, regaling them with stories about his 2016 election campaign and eventual victory over Hillary Clinton.

“I’m in love, and you’re in love,” Trump told the crowd near the start of his speech. “We’re all in love together.”


The president spent much of the first half of his remarks discussing the crowd size at his rallies. “I don’t think we’ve had an empty seat since we announced,” he said. “From the day we came down the escalator, I don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. I don’t think this has ever happened before, and that’s why I say now we have to verify it in 2020 with an even bigger victory.”

“They always mention crowd size,” Trump said of the press. “I say to Mercedes [Schlapp] and Sarah [Huckabee Sanders], ‘Show them the pictures! Compare that to what they show on television.’”

Trump also spent some time criticizing the Green New Deal. “Perhaps nothing is more extreme than the Democrats’ plan to take over American energy and destroy the economy,” he said. “I don’t want to talk them out of it. I don’t. I don’t. I swear I don’t. It’s a killer.”


“Socialism is about only one thing,” Trump added. “It’s called power for the ruling class. . . . I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. America will never be a socialist country.” He said Republicans care about the American dream and don’t want a “socialist nightmare.”


The president announced that he plans to sign an executive order requiring college campuses to support free speech, in the wake of an incident at the University of California, Berkeley, where conservative activist Hayden Williams was punched in the face while recruiting students to join the Leadership Institute.

Trump also knocked Democrats for supporting the Reproductive Health Act in New York, which legalized abortion for any reason up to 24 weeks, and noted that 44 Democratic senators voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act on Monday, which would have required doctors to provide medical care to infants born alive after attempted abortion procedures.