CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, has been the place to go for decades to take the pulse of the conservative movement, and its relevance in the Republican Party. This year was Donald Trump’s third time not to have addressed CPAC in person, since he first did so in 2011, missing only 2012 and 2016 before this year. This was my 25th CPAC since I started going in 1998.
It took place in Grapevine, Texas, near the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, the weekend of March 26-28. Whereas in 2025, when the event took place at National Harbor in Maryland right outside of the nation’s capital, it served as a celebration of Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, with a feeling of hope and appreciation after the four disastrous years of the Biden administration’s open borders, massive inflation and over-regulation, and various scandals, including the departure from Afghanistan, the rise again of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the outright weaponization of the FBI and the Justice Department to go after Donald Trump and other political opponents of the administration.
This year there was also much made of the accomplishments of the Trump administration, particularly in terms of foreign affairs, the resolving of several long-term wars and new dust-ups taking place, such as the decades-long conflict between Rwanda and The Congo, between India and Pakistan, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and ending the immediate conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with a successful return of all hostages held by the Iranian-backed terrorist organization. That last one gets a grade of Incomplete, as the 20-point plan is stuck at point 1, considering that Hamas is still armed and largely in control of Gaza.
Trump also got most NATO countries to increase their commitment to spend 5% instead of 2% of their GDP on defense, though lately he is mostly blasting NATO for how he assesses their support in the current war with Iran. Trump is demonstrating that a U.S. president can and should have both a domestic and a foreign policy.
He also stood in front of the United Nations in 2025 and rightly called out the claims that climate change is an existential threat as “the greatest con job” ever inflicted on the world and labeled the carbon footprint “a hoax made up by people with evil intentions.”
He accurately, based on evidence, spoke of renewable energy like wind and solar as unreliable “scams” that harm economies, and urged nations to abandon them or face failure, while promoting U.S. fossil fuels.
Trump also made significant efforts to end the killing between Russia and Ukraine, something else the Biden regime failed to even attempt.
CPAC also highlighted their progress in helping places like Argentina and Japan move strongly toward free markets, freedom and democracy.
But problems exist right below the surface. While holding the White House and both Houses of Congress, both with slim majorities, the Trump administration and the congressional GOP have run into barriers keeping them from achieving some of their most ambitious goals.
Those goals, including avoiding government shutdowns, getting rid of the tens of millions of people who came here illegally – and that was just under the Biden administration – bringing accountability to the vast welfare, Medicare and Medicaid fraud that has been allowed to go on in mainly Democrat-run states like California and Minnesota, and punish sanctuary cities and states.
But a poisonous divide has entered the movement. Without sticking labels on certain people, there is a delusion that Israel dragged the U.S. into the war with Iran, all to serve the political needs of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump has refuted that time and time again, in many ways. He has regularly proclaimed Israel as a great ally, and when asked whether Israel dragged the U.S. into the war with Iran, he denied that, saying, “No. I might have forced their hand,” and “if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
At CPAC, both sides of that argument, whether Israel is our greatest ally, or a malevolent power dragging Trump, who ran on no more endless wars, on a reckless path that threatens his presidency, were on display at CPAC. Two speeches exposed that rift, one by Newsweek editor Josh Hammer, another by War Room host Steve Bannon. It was actually fairly civil, and that was not a major issue there, at least from the main stage.
Arguably, the presidential straw poll, an annual ritual at CPAC, may have captured the divide there. Vice President JD Vance received 53% of the vote, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio got 35%. Vance has refused to distance himself from Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who has become one of the most venomous critics of Israel. Trump has completely distanced himself from Tucker, as he has from Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly and Marjorie Taylor Greene. One of Carlson’s sons works for Vance, and Vance is seen as conflicted by how close the US and Israel are, and whether Trump should have gotten involved in this war.
Rubio, on the other hand, is seen as a close ally and supporter of Israel, and of the Trump agenda. However, he went from 3% in last year’s straw poll to 35%, while Vance saw his support dip from 61% to 53%.
There was a lot of frustration at CPAC over the fracture between Senate Minority Leader John Thune and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson over a plan to reopen the parts of the Department of Homeland Security that weren’t functioning. The Senate passed a bill by Unanimous Consent in the middle of the night right during the middle of CPAC, and sent it to the House where Johnson angrily denounced it and refused to consider it. That is still where things stand, with Congress having returned on Monday and a new plan to resolve the situation was announced by Thune.
Regarding the divide over Israel, one group holds that the US and Israel are close allies acting in deliberate coordination, that striking Iran was a long-overdue conclusion to a 47-year conflict, not Israel “going rogue” or manipulating Trump into serving its agenda. The other group views this as a new war of choice, launched without a credible imminent threat, and one that, whatever its justification, does not appear to be unfolding as intended.
The largest, it felt like, and most vocal group at CPAC were people from the Iranian diaspora, in this case mostly supporting Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah of Iran who spoke there. But many don’t see him as the answer, even if he were to stick to his pledge to lead the transition to democracy in a year or so, and be willing to withdraw from leadership.
Can we really bomb Iran into surrendering and/or count on the 90% of the population that we believe are opposed to the current regime to rise up and overthrow the remainder of the IRGC and theocrats who run the country? The two-week ceasefire, scheduled to end on April 21, has been supplanted by a day of negotiations in Pakistan, taking each other’s temperature, and Iran seizing control over the Strait of Hormuz for a few days until it became obvious that that was unacceptable.
We are now in the early days of a US naval blockade of Iranian ports, a necessary move. The US, as the naval superpower in the world, albeit far less so than it used to be, is the guarantor of freedom of navigation and it must accept that role. The idea of these negotiations to get Iran to promise to give up their ambition to possess nuclear weapons, which they’ve always claimed they aren’t seeking, seems pointless and not worth the paper that it might be written on, as I explained in my last column.
The best solution is for Iran to go the way of Libya. After seeing what the US and its allies did to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, Gaddafi decided to end his nuclear weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) ambitions.
“In the decision announced Friday by all sides, Libya agreed to disclose all its weapons of mass destruction and related programs and to open the country to international weapons inspectors to oversee their elimination,” CBS News reported on December 21, 2003.
That is the only way this could work with Iran.
The uncertainty of where this goes from here, that’s another problem. True regime change in Iran would be ideal, and I suspect there is such a plan in the works. President Trump claims that has already occurred, and that we’re now dealing with more reasonable people. Perhaps, but their word or even their signature is not to be trusted.
Plan A, to destroy their navy, air defenses, many of their ballistic missiles and their ability to meaningfully fight back, achieved some of those objectives, but didn’t end the war. I hope Plan B does, for the sake of peace in the Middle East, and some form of freedom for the 90 million people living under the hated regime.
All roads from CPAC lead to November 3 of this year, the date for the midterm elections when 435 House seats will be determined (probably 400 of them are safe seats for one party or the other), as will 33 U.S. senators, plus two more in special elections in Florida and Ohio, meaning 35 Senate seats are in play this year.
Based on this year’s special elections so far, it’s not looking good for Republicans, who all realize that if they lose the House or the Senate, the next two years will be hell for Trump and the Republicans, with impeachment, non-stop hearings and subpoenas, and CNN and the rest of the leftwing media to treat every day like Watergate, or Christmas, or like their previous sham January 6 hearings.
I had the chance to interview several people at CPAC, to examine some issues and candidates. Two of them are posted. One is with Bo French, the former GOP chairman of Tarrant County (Ft. Worth, Texas), and the other is Steve Lance, about his new documentary, “UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun,” about massive persecution by the Chinese Communist Party.
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
