Takeaways from Day 1 of CPAC 2026

By Eric Bradner, Steve Contorno, CNN

Grapevine, Texas (CNN) — The movement that helped return President Donald Trump to the White House in 2024 is split over the war with Iran and Trump’s relationship with Israel, the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, fractures among some of its most prominent personalities and more.

But all of that was on the backburner on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference’s gathering of activists and leaders in Texas.

Day one of CPAC was largely a pep rally for Trump, with a long line of speakers and panelists gushing over the president’s policies and glossing over the “Make America Great Again” movement’s divisions.

MAGA figures who have built their careers on urging conservatives to fight, including pro-Trump commentator Benny Johnson, told attendees to set aside their differences with each other and focus on Democrats and the upcoming midterm elections.

“Your enemy is not the people that you have good-faith disagreement with inside your movement,” he said. “Your enemy is the Marxists, and they’re going to be running against us hard in the midterms and in 2028.”

Prominent Trump administration figures popular with his base, including retiring Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino and border czar Tom Homan, got rock star receptions.

Conservatives from overseas — including Britain’s Liz Truss — showed up to praise the president and echo his familiar lines. Truss warned that “there is still a deep state here in America,” and urged conservatives to “remove them” while they are in power.

And controversial Trump decisions, including military strikes on boats his administration says are being used to smuggle drugs, were hailed.

“I love when they blow up those boats,” said Mercedes Schlapp, a veteran of the first Trump White House and co-leader of CPAC. “Every time there is one of those narco terrorist boats blown up, I’m like, yes, let’s do it again!”

Here are some other key takeaways from the first day of CPAC:

Midterm message is all about Trump

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, the party’s nominee in the marquee Senate race in North Carolina, is battling against a popular former governor in Democrat Roy Cooper in one of the nation’s most competitive states.

But there was no indication he believes there’s a path to victory by tacking to the political center when he took the CPAC stage Thursday afternoon.

Whatley told conservatives he’d be “an ally for Trump” in the Senate. He also touted the president’s agenda, casting Cooper as a “card-carrying member of the woke mob” whose administration undercut federal immigration enforcement efforts.

“President Trump’s agenda is really, truly the agenda that’s driving us right now,” Whatley said.

He also described Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who is poised to face a stiff challenge this fall, as well as several other Republicans in competitive Senate races — Ohio incumbent Jon Husted, former US Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan and Republicans competing in primaries in the Texas, Iowa and Kentucky races — as supporters of Trump.

“Every single one of these battleground states — the Republicans are running on an America first agenda. We’re running on President Trump’s agenda,” Whatley said.

Meanwhile, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said regardless of how the midterms shake out, Republicans will control Congress for at least nine more months and he criticized GOP leaders for not doing more to flex their power for as long as they have it.

“We have a majority. I think we should take it out for a spin,” he said. “If a woman can bake a baby inside her belly for nine months, certainly congressional Republicans could bake up a few ideas to put on President Trump’s desk.”

Deputy AG touts Flynn settlement

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche touted this week’s settlement with Michael Flynn on the CPAC stage Thursday as he acknowledged pressure from the right to fix what conservatives see as wrongful prosecutions.

“We were able to settle with General Flynn yesterday and get him back a lot of the money that he lost,” Blanche said of Trump’s former national security adviser, who had sued the government for millions of dollars over what he alleged to be a wrongful prosecution.

The Justice Department has faced criticism from conservatives over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files — a reality that wasn’t brought up Thursday. Blanche told conservatives that he, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump “are changing things.”

He also said that current members of Trump’s administration are afraid that if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028, “we’re all going to be investigated and indicted.”

And Blanche vowed that “justice” would come to those who had prosecuted Trump between his first and second terms in the White House — including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who led the successful prosecution of Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who prosecuted Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

“The attorney general and myself, every day, seven days a week, are focused on bringing justice, and it will come,” Blanche said.

A year later, a different mood

A year ago, conservatives gathered for CPAC outside Washington, DC, to bask in their electoral success. Tech billionaire Elon Musk wore dark shades and wielded a chainsaw on stage and Trump declared his movement was “thriving, fighting, winning and dominating Washington like never before.”

But on the opening day of the 2026 gathering outside Dallas, there was little sign of that electric atmosphere. Instead, a decidedly more subdued event kicked off under a cloud of angst: Unease with the war with Iran, misgivings about the effectiveness of Trump’s immigration crackdown and general fear about a growing enthusiasm gap with Democrats.

“We’re not united behind a real agenda, united behind real issues that we’re pushing to the public,” said Shashank Yalamanchi, a University of Florida law student. “Usually when we do push issues, it’s the same old tired thing that people have been talking about for years. So I think people want to see new things, they want to see bold things.”

Perhaps some of the malaise can be attributed to the lack of star power at this year’s event. Trump is expected to skip the event for the first time since 2016. Vice President JD Vance, who spoke last year, also isn’t on the schedule. And while Musk may run his companies out of Texas, he won’t be here either.

In their absence, dozens of seats remained empty inside the conference hall on Thursday and speakers at times had to encourage the audience to engage. At one point, Mercedes Schlapp had to prod the crowd to boo when someone mentioned former President Joe Biden.

For Kyle Sills, a local political consultant, the environment matched his biggest concern for Republicans entering the midterms: complacency.

“There’s a lot of bickering and infighting going on,” he said. “And I think it’s time we come together and let’s see what we can do.”

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

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