The president’s speech thrilled supporters at the Gaylord Convention Center, where attendees were in celebratory mood

Trump plays to the gallery at CPAC – and the gallery loves it

Donald Trump can read a room. And on Friday, he thrilled supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference by going off script with a rollocking review of the greatest hits of his election campaign. Or perhaps that should be revue.

The crowd roared to life. Chants of “lock her up” when the president mentioned Hillary Clinton evoked powerful nostalgia.

Trump returns to usual style at CPAC with boastful and divisive speech Read more

As did a dramatic recitation of The Snake, a song about a treacherous reptile that bites the woman who nursed it back to health, which Trump presents as an allegory for immigration policy, and which he often referred to on the campaign trail.

But the ominous lyrics were also a reminder that the issue is far from resolved, with thousands of young undocumented immigrants facing uncertain futures.

They loved it at CPAC.

“I thought that was so funny,” said Natalie DeChristopher, a sophomore at a Washington-area high school. “But it’s also informative, especially for young people who don’t always understand, like on immigration, everything that it entails.”

Barbara Kennedy, of Sun City, Arizona, said the speech was “wonderful” and demonstrated how he has “relaxed into the position”.

Trump spoke on the second morning of the four-day grassroots conservative conference, aimed at rousing the rightwing and roiling liberals.

This year, with their man in the White House and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, the rage that once seethed from conservatives at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland seemed to have softened.

I think it’s good for the old guard to step aside and really let the Trump people get into the party and run it Suzzanne Monk

“They say the right is angry. Oh no, I don’t think so,” said extreme conservative provocateur Laura Ingraham, urging the right to be “happy warriors”.



Between speakers, jaunty pop ballads blared, sometimes in sharp contrast to the grim warnings about the socialist dystopian future that would befall the country should Democrats regain control of a chamber of Congress in this year’s midterms.

“Is that Rocket Man?” a bemused Eric Trump asked an emptying ballroom on Thursday evening as the Elton John classic greeted his arrival on stage.

“It is very different this year,” Kristina Miniear, a pastor and co-host of the Conservative Commandos Radio Show, said.

Miniear pointed to the throngs of fresh-faced attendees as proof that Trump’s ascent was a sign of a bright future for the conservative movement.

“The next generation is really coming on board,” she said.

At a table sponsored by the conservative America Rising Super Pac, a pair of friends peered over a tranche of pins with the faces of potential 2020 Democratic candidates crossed out, including progressive senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

“Who should we take?” one mused. “I think I’m going to take Bernie and Pocahontas,” the other replied, referring to Trump’s derisive nickname for Warren to mock her claim of Native American ancestry.

At another booth, a Ukrainian organization courted support to erect a statue of Ronald Reagan in Kiev.

Play Video 0:36 I try like hell to hide that bald spot, says Donald Trump – video

The panels included wryly named sessions such as Kim Jong Un-iversity: How College Campuses are Turning into Re-education Camps and An Affair to Remember: How the Far Left and the Mainstream Media Got in Bed Together.

Sebastian Gorka, the controversial former White House adviser who had tense encounters with no less than two members of the press on the first day of the conference, was asked about the prospect of impeachment if Democrats win the House in November. He said that Trump would counter by “outflanking them every day on Twitter multiple times a day”.

Earlier in the day, the US vice-president was introduced by his wifeKaren Pence, who promised to “pull back the curtain” with “five facts you need to know about Mike Pence”.

The first, she revealed melodramatically, is that Friday night is pizza night in the Pence household. The standing order: a supreme, thin-crust pie washed down with an O’Doul’s, the non-alcoholic beer. The crowd also learned that Pence is an amateur cartoon artist and has long wished for a horse.

But there was a shortage of big names from Congress.

And that’s for the best, said Suzzanne Monk, who sardonically wore a “pussyhat”, a symbol of female resistance to Trump during the now-annual Women’s March, with “MAGA”, the acronym for Make America Great Again, emblazoned in big letters.



“I think it’s good for the old guard to step aside and really let the Trump people get into the party and run it,” she said.