Summary
The chairs are being stacked up in the main hall here at CPAC and I’m going to wrap up my coverage now. Here are the key points from today:
• Donald Trump revelled in his capture of America’s conservative movement on Friday with a speech that carried all the anger, nativism and rampant populism of his election campaign. “We are Americans,” the US president said to rapturous applause, “and the future belongs to us.”
• The White House confirmed that its chief of staff spoke with top FBI officials about the bureau’s inquiry into links between Trump’s associates and Russia – a conversation which appears to violate justice department rules to ensure the integrity of investigations.
• Wayne LaPierre, the leader of America’s largest gun rights group, accused the federal judiciary of doing violence to the constitution by upholding an injunction against Trump’s travel ban targeting people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
• The White House barred several news organizations from an off-camera press briefing, handpicking a select group of reporters that included a number of conservative outlets friendly toward Trump.
• Nigel Farage, one of the leading figures in the campaign to win Britain’s referendum on leaving the EU, told CPAC that Brexit and the election victory of Trump were “the beginning of a great global revolution” that would continue on throughout the west.
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.
Members of the White House press pool are sending out transcripts of White House spokesman Sean Spicer’s private press briefing, which was open only to hand-picked news outlets.
On White House chief of staff Reince Priebus’ converation with top FBI officials about the bureau’s inquiry into links between Donald Trump’s associates and Russia.
Number one, the deputy director comes to us, we didn’t go to them … The deputy director came to the chief of staff of the White House and literally said ‘the story is false.’ So here are the two scenarios. One is the chief of staff says nothing and just stares at him. Which is what some of the folks in this room believe he should have done … All we simply did was say ‘wow, you’re [inaudible] with this information, saying that something, a story in the New York Times was not accurate, so is there something that you’re doing to let other journalists know it’s not true, because you’re asking us.’ So that morning, I got let’s say 5, 10, 15 phone calls from you and your colleagues saying, ‘hey there’s a report in The New York Times, what are you thinking about it?’ Well if someone is coming to us, telling us that it’s not a true story, Our goal was to just literally say to them, ‘will your public affairs office take this phone call?’
This notion I see on CNN about, we pushed back or we applied pressure. Pressure by definition is applying force. So if we had said, ‘if you don’t do this, if you don’t do that,’ that’s pressure. And I get that. That would have been wrong. …
And the answer was, ‘well, we don’t want to get in the middle of starting a practice of doing this.’ ...
Had we not done anything and just sat there, it would have been irresponsible and frankly malpractice.
On Trump’s connections to Russia:
There are no connections to find out about. That’s the problem … You can’t disprove something that doesn’t exist. He’s talked about the fact how many times he’s talked to Putin. He has no interests in Russia.
On Trump’s declaration he wanted to stop journalists publishing stories based on unnamed sources. Would the White House continue to brief anonymously?
Sure. No, I’ll give you a great example. There’s a big difference… This morning was an example where we wanted to have a free-flowing exchange with reporters. At the end of the conversation several reporters said ‘can we use some of this on the record?’ We said yes … There’s a big difference between making serious allegations, us coming back on the record and reporters saying ‘well we have five sources that are unnamed that say contrary to that.’ There’s a point at which, there’s an obligation if you’re going to make a very, very serious allegation, and we’re willing to push back on the record, that there be somebody at the very least that’s willing to push back on this, and say that they’ll put their name attached to it.
On not making today’s briefing on-camera:
Doing a gaggle doesn’t preclude us from doing something on-camera right after that. … The idea was with time being what it is today we wanted to just make sure you guys got an update … I literally have said since day one that we would have some sort of gathering every day. The president spoke today. As you know we don’t generally do—we haven’t done briefings when the president’s had a major event or an event with a world leader … And we want to make sure we answer you questions, but we don’t need to do everything on camera every day.”
US Customs and Border Protection says it plans to start awarding contracts by mid-April for Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, reports the Associated Press.
The agency said Friday on a website for federal contractors that a request for bids would be published on or around March 6. Companies would have to submit “concept papers” to design and build prototypes by March 10.
CBP will narrow the field by March 20 and require that finalists renew their offers by March 24, with a price attached.
The timetable shows that Trump is aggressively pursuing plans to build what he calls “a great wall” on the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Trump told CPAC earlier today that construction would start “very soon” and was “way ahead of schedule”.
Hillary Clinton is back with a message for Democrats a day before they elect their next leader. Had she won, the choice would have been Clinton’s to make.
But instead, the 447 members convened in Atlanta – and Clinton is sending her well-wishes via a YouTube video.
In the video, Clinton urged Democrats to rally around whomever the party chooses.
“We as Democrats must move forward with courage, confidence, and optimism, and stay focused on the elections we must win this year and next. Let resistance plus persistence equal progress for our party and our country,” Clinton said in the video published on Friday.
Clinton’s involvement in the Democratic politics has been a topic of much speculation since her devastating lost to Donald Trump. During the DNC candidates’ forum earlier this week, the candidates were asked if it would be good or bad for the party if Clinton ran again in 2020. No one answered the question directly.
In the video, she pledged to stay active in helping to rebuild the party.
“Keep fighting,” she said. “I’ll be right there with you every step of the way.”
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The Guardian was among several media organisations barred from Spicer’s briefing. In response to a request to attend using a White House “hard pass”, official Catherine Hicks emailed: “No, unfortunately a hard pass does not necessarily guarantee entry into the gaggle. The gaggle today is just today’s pool with the addition of a few others here at the White House.”
The White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) condemned the highly unusual move. Its president, Jeff Mason, said in an email: “The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House. We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”
Soon after, journalists present emailed audio recordings of Spicer’s briefing to a general distribution list for White House correspondents.
Reporters from the New York Times, CNN, BuzzFeed, and LA Times were among those blocked from briefing https://t.co/mro4vRr8UZ pic.twitter.com/Ig4FpUHaP9
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) February 24, 2017
Shortly after Donald Trump’s attack on the media this morning, the White House altered arrangements for Friday’s briefing with press secretary with Sean Spicer. It changed from “on camera” to “off camera” and from the normal briefing room to a gathering for an “expanded pool” of reporters at the briefing room doors.
Reporters have been tweeting that only certain news organisations were allowed in:
BBC, CNN, NY TIMES and LA TIMES not being briefed as part of WH gaggle today. Allowed in are Breitbart, Washington Times, NBC, ABC, OAN
— Laura Bicker (@BBCLBicker) February 24, 2017
Blocked from White House media briefing
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) February 24, 2017
· CNN
· NY Times
· LA Times
· POLITICO
· BuzzFeed
Allowed to attend
· Breitbart
The New York Times reports:
Journalists from The New York Times and two other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President Trump’s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.
Reporters from The Times, CNN and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing. Aides to Mr. Spicer allowed in reporters from only a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed to attend.
Organizations allowed in included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News also attended.
Whether by coincidence or by design, Xavier Becerra, California’s new attorney general, and the de facto opposition leader to Donald Trump, addressed Democrats in Atlanta while the president spoke at CPAC.
In an extended baseball metaphor, he described Democrats as the heavy hitters — the team that passed social security and Medicare and put a man on the moon.
He urged Democrats to adopt a simpler message (like Make America Great Again) rather than a 10-point plan (“Go to my website: HillaryClinton.com”).
“It’s hard for us Democrats to believe that something so simple with just a few words like ‘be a hitter’, ‘get in the way’ can be the secret sauce of success. You know why?” Becerra said. “Because we’re Democrats. We overthink things,” he said, drawing laughs and a lot of nods.
“We tend to think the recipe for the secret sauce must be some kind of quadratic equation or something like that. It couldn’t be possible it’s so simple. We let our brains take over our hearts and guts.”
At the end of his speech, he suggested that Democrats can expect more legal confrontations with the administration, as many anticipate from his office, especially on issues of immigration.
“Believe me,” he said, “the strikes are coming.”
The temperature has plunged in this hall, and half way through LaPierre’s speech all the lights went out.
He says he will fight “the violent left” on the internet, on TV, in Congress, in statehouses, in courthouses, from coast to coast.
“If the violent left brings their terror to our communities ... they will be met with the full force of American freedom,” he says, claiming “we are the majority in this country”, although obviously 3m more people voted for the liberal candidate at the last US election than the conservative one.
He calls on the crowd to stand up, which they do.
That was probably the most alarmist, dystopian and violent speech that has been made here so far, which is all the more notable given that on the face of it what LaPierre was saying was that his side was now in the ascendent. His attacks on the left and elision of leftwing protest with crime and terrorism made Trump sound calm and measured.
Updated
“Americans wanted a fighter, and we got one with President Donald J Trump,” he says. And the NRA has fought for American freedom every day, says LaPierre. “We’ve got President Trump’s back for the next eight years,” he says to cheers.
If you’re “a member of the leftist media, a soldier for the violent left”, a criminal, or a terrorist, hear this: “you are not going to win and you will not defeat us,” he says.
He says the media never cared about Obama’s policy towards Russia, but now “oh my god, they’re horrified, all a-fret” ... and worse, he says, they seem to have found “willing co-conspirators among the intelligence community”.
Leaks of Trump’s telephone calls risk America’s national security, he claims. In the old days, if you would have done that, “you would have been tracked down and hanged for treason”.
Yet says media coverage of the commuting of “traitor” Chelsea Manning’s sentence concentrated on her “underwear and make-up return”.
He paints a picture of universities that silence dissent and are full of violent, angry mobs, while the police stand by. They’ve got a fight on their hands, he says.
“The leftist media is responsible for blowing the winds of violence as well,” he says.
He attacks CNN for an item on the possibility of Trump’s assassination, and a journalist for the Times of London for joking about the same thing.
He plays a clip of himself from the 1990s during the debate over banning assault weapons. In the clip he claims a CNN story was fake. The crowd here at CPAC cheers.
He says “he caught them like a bank robber running out of the bag with the dye exploding all over him”.
“Our country is under siege from a media carpet-bombing campaign,” he adds. He has used an incredible array of extremely violent metaphors during this speech.
“The left’s violence against America has taken many forms,” he says, counting “judicial activism” such as the court ruling against Trump’s travel ban. It’s a stretch to refer to a court decision as violence.
He claims the president has “absolute authority” to suspend immigration in the way the order, which has now been blocked, set out.
He describes this as “throwing a molotov cocktail at the US constitution”.
“By making the law mean anything they want, they make the law mean nothing,” he says.
LaPierre says we are living in an angry time. Many people want to tear things down and blow things up, he says, drawing a line from protesters, to Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, to Isis.
Is it anything but a matter of time before the terror of Brussels comes to the US, he asks.
“What happens if terrorists tag along with a flashmob protest at your local airport and gas the place like they did in Tokyo?” he asks. This is alarmist stuff.
Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association is addressing the conference.
He starts by claiming anti-Trump protesters don’t know what they’re protesting, wear black masks, “spit in the face of gold star families”, and smash windows. Footage of violent scenes is being played on the screen behind her.
More than 200 protesters were arrested on the day of Trump’s inauguration as thousands demonstrated peacefully.
The much bigger protests in Washington and across the country the next day are believed to have been totally peaceful.
Farage seems to be enjoying himself ...
Meanwhile, in New York ...
Obama just left a meeting off 5th Ave. Hundred outside cheering. pic.twitter.com/6oPC3yCEEX
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) February 24, 2017
“We’re not against anybody based on religion or ethnicity,” Farage claims, although he has a record of inflammatory claims about Muslims.
We are for our country and our people “and we are winning!” Farage says in conclusion. They like that.
He repeats that 2016 is “the beginning of a great global revolution”. This will roll out across the rest of the west. “We’ve got some very exciting elections coming up in the Netherlands, in France,” he says.
I wonder how much this crowd cares about whether this “revolution” spreads elsewhere. Surely the key point of Trumpism is that it’s all about what is perceived to be best for America, not foreigners.
He claims Trump is “restoring faith in the democratic process and good for him”.
In 2016 the nation state hit back against “the globalists”, he says.
Trump could not have done it alone. He had Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway “and every single one of you”.
His favourite part of 2016 wasn’t these victories, he says, it was “watching the faces of the CNN presenters!” – essentially saying that achieving his life’s political dream was not as satisfying as proving the media wrong.
He claims Brexit is becoming more popular by the day and Trump will too (“in America”).
Tony Blair gets a boo from a loud section of the crowd. “Oh, he’s popular here too, then?” quips Farage.
He recalls sharing a stage with Trump and telling the crowd not to listen to the naysayers. “I said, ‘we got our country back on June 23, and you can get yours back too on November 8.’ I am pleased and proud that I did that.”
He says he is proud to have been part of Trump’s campaign.
And he says he is seeing something quite remarkable: “an elected leader trying to put in place the platform on which he was elected.”
Wasn’t Trump just superb this morning? They agree he was.
Vast sections of the media said Brexit would not happen, he says, ignoring the swathes of British media that supported Brexit.
We even had a visit from Obama, he says, to loud boos. Farage says he is grateful Obama intervened and told “America’s greatest friend and ally in the world ... that if we voted to get our independence we would go to the back of the line”. That gets boos too. He claims this increased the poll numbers for the leave side.
Nigel Farage at #CPAC2017 pic.twitter.com/c5HpO03Nij
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) February 24, 2017
Farage says 2016 will be remembered for “the beginning of a global political revolution and it’s one that is not going to stop, it’s one that is going to roll out across the rest of the free world”.
He says he has fought against Britain’s membership of the EU for 25 years.
“You’ve only had a few months of being abused, I’ve had 20 years of it!” he says.
“Our real friends in the world speak English, have common law, and stand by us in times of crisis,” Farage claims.
Farage speech
There’s a standing ovation for Farage, although of course the crowd is much smaller now than for Trump.
Farage says he is delighted CPAC invited him – “me, a foreigner!”
But since Trump’s election he feels more American each time he comes here, he says.
He says Farage has been a mentor and a father figure. He has survived cancer, a car crash, a plane crash, BBC, CNN, and the European parliament, he says.
He introduces Farage as “Mr Brexit”.
Raheem Kassam, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart London, introduces Farage, saying CPAC is “absolutely bloody fantastic”.
They like that. He says he was “born into a Muslim family” and describes himself “as a conservative, a proud Englishman and a robust Americaphile”.
When people ask him if he makes the Hajj, or pilgrimage, he says, yes, every year, to the Gaylord Convention Center, to CPAC.
He then whips up the crowd into loud boos against the media (of which he is himself a member).
He claims to have gone to “no-go zones” in Sweden. “You guys in the back, you just don’t get it,” he tells the media. “You don’t go there. You don’t see what’s going on. Get your heads out of your rears!”
He adds: “I’m sorry, they’re not all like that.”
Turning now to the subject of his speech, he says Farage has changed the world. Brexit was spurred by a man who loves his country and wants to secure its borders, he says.
Click below to watch Farage live:
Up next is Nigel Farage, the former leader of the United Kingdom Independence party (Ukip) and one of the leading figures in the campaign to win Britain’s referendum on leaving the EU.
Farage has ingratiated himself with Trump of late, and met him after his election before Theresa May, the prime minister, a disregard for diplomatic niceties that Trump compounded by suggesting the UK make Farage ambassador to the US. As a former holder of that post, Sir Christopher Meyer, pointed out: “UK ambassador in DC exists to defend UK interests in US, not US interests in UK.”
Farage will be introduced by Raheem Kassam, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart London and a former aide to Farage.
My colleague David Smith caught up with Farage here yesterday. He backed Donald Trump and his chief strategist Steve Bannon to the hilt over the travel ban, attacks on the media, and attitude to Russia. He said of Trump: “I think it’s a wonderful refreshing change to see someone who’s been elected who’s absolutely intent on putting his platform into policy.”
Donald Trump returns fairly frequently to the crime rate in Chicago, which recorded the highest annual number of homicides in more than two decades: 762, more than the figures for New York and Los Angeles combined.
Yesterday he tweeted:
Seven people shot and killed yesterday in Chicago. What is going on there - totally out of control. Chicago needs help!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017
It was the city’s “single deadliest day since Christmas Day”, the Chicago Tribune reported.
But now Chicago’s superintendent of police, Eddie Johnson, has said his department has asked the White House and Justice Department for help – and heard nothing back.
“We’ve made requests to the White House and the Justice Department for them to support our work — from increasing federal gun prosecution to more FBI, DEA and ATF agents to more funding for mentoring, job training and more,” Johnson said in a statement. “We are still waiting for the administration’s response to our request.”
After Trump in January said that if Chicago didn’t “fix” its problem with violent crime, he would “send in the feds”, mayor Rahm Emanuel said: “Just send them ... Send more FBI, DEA, ATF agents. We don’t have to talk about it anymore. Just send them.”
Trump speech – summary
That was a populist and nationalistic speech from Donald Trump, which seemed to be what the CPAC crowd were after. It didn’t take much for them to erupt into chants of USA! USA!
Trump made false claims about his travel ban, recent tightening of immigration enforcement, polls, and the Affordable Care Act, and unlikely ones about when building will start on the wall with Mexico and the turnout for his speech today.
Clearly exercised by the run of recent leaks to the press from intelligence agencies about his administration, most recently a CNN story stating that Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, asked the FBI to deny media reports that campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election, Trump gave over one of the longest passages of his speech to the media.
He said the press should not be allowed to use anonymous sources, a restriction on free speech he has not suggested before. “You will see stories dry up like you have never seen before,” Trump said.
In a recent column, Liz Spayd, the public editor of the New York Times, gave a vigorous defence of the use of anonymous sources, which bears repeating here:
Throughout history, some of those who have spoken up provided information that exposed grave government failings, and also strengthened democracy.
Had the legions of unnamed not come forward, the CIA black-site prisons would never have come to light. Nor would the government’s wiretapping of private citizens, or the investigations of a potential bridge between the Trump team and Moscow.
Trump also attempted to drew a new distinction between “fake news”, which he attacked, and other parts of the media, which he said he was not opposed to. That train may well have left the station, however, judging by how frequently the term has been thrown around during this conference to describe everything from the science of climate change to past liberal predictions about the future success of Obamacare.
Updated
Hillary Clinton called his voters “deplorable”, he says ... and the crowd erupts into chants of “lock her up”.
The GOP will be the party of the American worker, he says.
He claims “millions and millions” of people have joined the Republican party since the 2016 primaries, and gives himself the credit.
He says there is no global flag or anthem – prompting chants of USA! USA! again. There is a very nationalistic mood here this morning.
We all bleed the same red blood, he says, and “we are all equal in the eyes of almighty God”. Sticking with the religious theme, he thanks Christians, as well as “rabbis”.
With an uncharacteristic flight of rhetoric, he tells them:
There is no dream to large, no task too great. We are Americans and the future belongs to us.
He adds, more prosaically: “America is coming back. It’s going to be bigger and better. It’s roaring. It’s going to be bigger and better and stronger than ever before.”
With that, he wraps up to the sound of You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones – the song that usually ended his campaign rallies, and which continues to be a strange choice, since its theme directly undercuts his message.
Trump and the crowd applaud military veterans together.
He says he will “fix” trade deals.
“You wonder where did the people come from,” who cut these deals, he muses. Replying to a shout from the crowd, he says: “They also came from campaign contributions.” It’s not clear what exactly he’s suggesting.
He gets another big cheer for saying he will protect the right to bear arms.
Trump says the military is working on a plan “to totally obliterate Isis” and “eradicate this evil from the face of the earth”.
He links that to “border security”. “Foreign terrorists will not be able to strike America if they can’t get in to America.” In fact no one from any of the countries named in Trump’s travel ban has been responsible for any attacks in the US.
“I took a lot of heat on Sweden,” he says ruefully, referring to a false claim he made recently about a non-existent attack there, “and then a day later I said: has anybody reported what’s going on?”
He tells a story about an acquaintance who used to love Paris, “the city of lights”, but no longer goes there because “Paris is no longer Paris”. He doesn’t explain exactly what he means.
After a diatribe about “blood-sucking consultants”, he says miners are going back to work and claims they will be digging up “beautiful clean coal”.
Trump says he is going to protect the environment but says there are many environmental regulations that need to be cut. The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers was recently highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records. Fears that Donald Trump’s presidency will suppress climate science at the EPA are causing widespread unease among staff.
Simplifying the tax code gets a big round of applause.
Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017
As Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post points out, the White House is not averse to using anonymous sources itself, despite Trump’s attack on the practice early.
Trump:"They shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name"
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) February 24, 2017
One hour ago, Trump’s WH put out these anonymous sources: pic.twitter.com/XL7BhPREMm
He claims immigration officers are finding “drug dealers”, “criminal aliens” ... “and throwing them the hell out of our country”. In fact the changes Trump has made to immigration policy mean the government is no longer focusing on those undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes, instead widening the potential net to people who may only have committed traffic offences, or may have only been suspected (not convicted) of a crime.
“When was the last time we won? Do we win a war? Do we win anything? We’re going to win big, folks ... believe me.”
That prompts another burst of USA! USA! chanting.
“The era of empty talk is over,” Trump says.
He claims building the wall with Mexico is “going to start soon – way ahead of schedule”. It’s not clear what schedule or what planned building work he is referring to.
He says his recent tightening of immigration policy is to get “bad people out”.
Turning to the Middle East, he says it’s in much worse shape than 15 years ago. “If our presidents would have gone to the beach” for 15 years the Middle East would have been in better shape, he says.
He attacks the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, Obama’s health reforms, which led to 20 million people gaining health coverage. It covers “very few people”, he claims falsely.
His opponents lost the election, he says. “How many elections do we have to have?”
The fake news “doesn’t represent the people”, he says.
“Our victory was a win like nobody has ever seen before,” says Trump, and he dedicates it to a “country and people who believe in freedom, security and the rule of law”. It was a win for “conservative values”, he says, and for everyone who believes it’s time to stand up for the American worker and the American flag. That gets cheers and applause.
“There are lines that go back six blocks” to get into the speech, he claims. I’m in the hall so I can’t see whether that is true, but Trump has consistently exaggerated the numbers of people trying to get into his events.
He then returns to the 2016 election, saying he likes Bernie Sanders because he attacks free trade.
They make up something else, he claims – “polls”.
He calls CNN the “Cinton News Network”, delighting the crowd. “You’d think they’d fire the pollster ... Maybe they’re just bad at polling, or maybe it’s not legit.”
He says polls showing he would not win might have put off some of his voters from voting – a critique shared by critics of polls who think they are flawed but do not suggest they are made up.
He recalls his “first major political speech” at CPAC some years ago. “I wasn’t even running ... and it gave me an idea!”
He says he would have come last year “but I was worried that at the time I was too controversial”.
He lists a number of his policies that contributed to that and the crowd cheers them.
“The media didn’t think we would win,” Trump says.
“Fake news!” cries someone in the crowd.
The consultants didn’t either, he says. They are no good at politics “but they’re really good at sucking up people’s money”.
But, Trump says, “never underestimate the people”.
“I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake. A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are ... Because they have no sources. They just make them up where there are none,” he claims.
He talks about a recent story citing nine sources. “There were no nine people ... because I know them,” he claims.
But he claims he is drawing a distinction between the “fake news” and the media as a whole. “I’m not against the press ... I am only against the fake news media or press.”
He says: “I’m against the people who make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,” he says – a restriction on free speech he has not suggested before. “You will see stories dry up like you have never seen before,” he predicts.
He says yesterday’s Reuters report was by an “honourable” journalist, however.
Updated
Trump speaks
Trump arrives to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA. He thanks Matt Schlapp and “his very incredible wife – and boss”.
He says he loves CPAC and will “make sure that we’re here a lot”.
He tells the crowd to sit down. “The dishonest media will say ‘he didn’t get a standing ovation,’” he says. “You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat.”
That gets applause and a chant of USA! USA!
#CPAC2017 attendees photograph Trump as he arrives pic.twitter.com/5G4XjUKZoC
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) February 24, 2017
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Mercedes Schlapp of the Washington Times and Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union which organises CPAC, arrive to introduce Trump.
The couple greet each other as “Mr Deplorable” and “Mrs Irredeemable”.
Matt Schlapp says it feels good to have someone lead the US “who knows how to fight – and he’s fighting for you”.
He says the conference will continue to have Trump’s back.
The hall has filled up in anticipation of Trump and the attendees have been told that if they leave now they won’t be able to get back in. A brief chant of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” just broke out in an overflow area behind the media section. You can watch his speech live above if you refresh the page.
Donald Trump has told his Twitter followers this morning he is “Going to CPAC!”, but he also has other matters on his mind.
In two tweets this morning he attacked the FBI for not being able to stop leakers to the media – even “within the FBI itself”.
The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security "leakers" that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017
find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017
This may have been prompted by a CNN story last night stating that Reince Priebus, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, asked the FBI to deny media reports that campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election. The FBI rejected the request, CNN reported, citing “multiple US officials brief on the matter”.
A White House official said the request was only made after the FBI suggested to the White House it did not believe the reports to be accurate, CNN reported.
Democrats said Priebus had violated policies intended to limit communications between the law enforcement agency and the White House on pending investigations.
The slew of leaks to the press from intelligence agencies about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia and many other matters, including phone calls from the president to world leaders, have enraged Trump and led to the resignation of Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. He has frequently attempted to redirect attention away from the substance of the leaks towards the leaks themselves.
Updated
Hello, and welcome back to our coverage of CPAC, America’s biggest conservative conference, where Donald Trump is due to address attendees this morning.
The president – once a poor fit at this mecca for traditional American conservatism – seems likely to be received with open arms on Friday, judging by the people we spoke to here on Thursday.
Whatever ideological differences they may once have had with him, and whatever doubts about his conservative bona fides they may still have, attendees in the main seem delighted that their team is now back in charge of the White House and Congress after eight years they regard as a disaster.
“I think by tomorrow this’ll be TPAC!” joked senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway at CPAC on Thursday. It didn’t appear to be far from the truth.
Attendees bounded down the hallways donning Trump’s signature red “Make America Great Again” hats, flitting between discussions often framed around what they dubbed a campaign by the “dishonest media” to discredit Trump and his administration.
Richard Barrett, a 21-year-old student who identified himself as an early Trump supporter, said he felt vindicated by the pro-Trump tone that dominated CPAC’s first full day.
“I was here last year, and this convention was pretty anti-Trump,” Barrett said. “It was really funny, because everybody here was ‘Never Trump’; [they said] he’s never going to win the primary, it’s going to be Ted Cruz all the way.’
“And, well, here we are.”
Pete Logsden of suburban Washington echoed this praise. “If I was going to think of any other president to compare him with it would be Reagan, and honestly, he’s more conservative in a lot of ways.”
Yesterday the main event for many was a rare public sighting of Steve Bannon, seen by many as the power behind the throne and the engine of Trump’s ideology, which he described as “economic nationalism”.
Bannon and his White House colleague Reince Priebus, who comes from the establishment wing of the party, put on a show of unity. But although Priebus, a former party chair, listed Trump’s policy priorities and made it clear he was committed to trying to deliver them, it was the former Breitbart boss Bannon who seemed to truly embody the worldview of the Trump White House.
And his fury at the media, which he calls the “opposition party”, was never far from the surface. “If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you’re sadly mistaken,” he said of the media. “Every day is going to be a fight. That is the promise of Donald Trump.”
Media coverage of the Trump administration would never improve, Bannon claimed, because the “corporatist, globalist” nature of the media meant it was intrinsically opposed to the new president’s policies.
Vice-President Mike Pence and controversial White House aide Kellyanne Conway also spoke.
Trump is due to speak today at about 10am ET – the White House says 10am, the agenda says 10.20am.
He’ll be followed later on by two other political figures who have found themselves making a sudden move from the fringes to the mainstream over the last year: National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre and UK Brexit leader Nigel Farage.
Here are some highlights:
• About 10am ET: Donald Trump
• 11.55am: Nigel Farage on “Brexit and what it means for the world”
• 12.55pm: Wayne LaPierre
• 1.35pm: Armed and Fabulous: The New Normal – a discussion featuring many NRA representatives
• 2pm: Revolt of the Deplorables: Inside Election 2016
• 2.20pm: John Bolton, George W Bush’s ambassador to the UN
• 3pm: Carly Fiorina, former presidential candidate
• After 5pm: Draft Sheriff Clarke for Senate event featuring Dog the Bounty Hunter and “Sheriff Clarke’s 18 inch bobblehead”
• 5.45pm: Repealing Obama’s Banking Monstrosity and Making Money Work Again: Making Money Great Again
• 7.30pm: Michael Reagan, son of the former president
