Welcome to Friday’s Washington Secrets, where we are on a road trip to Grapevine, Texas. We spent Thursday mingling with the crowds at the Conservative Political Action Conference, taking the temperature of the movement, as well as getting into a fight with Maureen Bannon and getting slapped on the chest by Ric Grenell. All in a day’s work …
8:57 a.m. Liz Truss, British prime minister for 49 days, is marching purposefully through the Gaylord Texan convention center’s corridors. She is everywhere all at once. This is the third time in less than 24 hours that Secrets has bumped into her. The first time she rebuffed a request for an interview (“I’m still getting my bearings,” she said, as she admitted no one had told her when or where she was due to speak) and then later in the bar, where she was having dinner.
9:30 a.m. The doors to the main stage open. A dozen red-hatted figures run into the room to claim the best seats in the cavernous hall. A handful of journalists are already in position at the back of the room.
9:50 a.m. A crowd is gathered around the stage where Steve Bannon is broadcasting “WarRoom”. He has paused his show to take Donald Trump’s Cabinet meeting live – it might be the most this audience sees of the President this week. Trump is skipping CPAC for the first time in a decade.
10:02 a.m. Secrets stops to talk to Dana, a grandmother from Houston, who is wearing a “Bannon was right” cap. We ask what she thinks of the war in Iran and she begins by saying: “As I said to the others …” This is the fourth time a reporter has asked her the same question. Secrets apologizes for the media’s lack of imagination.
10:54 a.m. Todd Blanche, deputy US Attorney General, steps on to the main stage with Matt Schlapp, CPAC organizer, for their “fireside chat.” There is no fire or side. But Blanche is one of the most senior administration figures to attend. It all feels very different to last year, which was a celebration of Trump’s new term, and a parade of senior officials: J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and Elon Musk all appeared. Mild mannered Blanche still gets a big reception, and he looks sharp despite having had a late-night drink with Secrets on Wednesday. He described how he had entered Trump’s orbit by being defense lawyer to Trump’s roving adviser Boris Epshteyn.
12:20 p.m. A source invites Secrets to lunch at the convention center’s Mexican cantina. Obviously, there’s a former British prime minister in the line. She looks skeptical about Secrets’ promise that she is not being followed. She is one of the busiest attendees, as she continues to seek an audience in America, and the week’s worst-kept secret is that she will be launching the latest version of CPAC U.K. while she is here. The restaurant is in the spacious glass-roofed atrium of the convention center, with a San Antonio-style riverwalk, although drainwalk might be more appropriate given its size.
12:34 p.m. Benny Johnson, host of the Benny Show, is on the main stage. He has a decent crowd, even though his shtick is much the same as he delivers on the show every day. It is a reflection of the schedule (which actually has just disappeared from the CPAC website, much to journalists’ consternation) which is heavy this year on podcasters and influencers and light on heavy hitters in positions of power.
12:50 p.m. An aide to the Serb member of the Bosnian presidency messages to say that her schedule has changed and Željka Cvijanović is no longer available for an interview. Secrets is secretly relieved.
2:05 p.m. Back to the expo hall, where Ric Grenell, who recently stepped down as head of the Kennedy Center, is striding purposefully through the crowds toward a TV hit. Secrets falls into step beside him to ask what he’s going to do next. “I’m not going to tell you,” he says, adding a slap on the chest. As he arrives at the OANN booth, Mike Lindell, reformed crack addict and pillow millionaire, scurries away, carrying his lunch in a plastic bag. Matt Gaetz is floating around nearby.
GAETZ WARNS IRAN ESCALATION WOULD ‘MAKE OUR COUNTRY POORER ANS LESS SAFE’ AT CPAC
3:35 p.m. The crowds in the expo hall have grown throughout the day. A bar has opened selling glasses of wine for $14 and a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty breezes around. Sequinned Trump jackets, cigars and Patriot cellphone packages are all for sale.
3:50 p.m. Steve Bannon arrives to prepare for his afternoon show. He chats with Secrets about the absence of Trump and his top lieutenants. He says CPAC knew what it was doing by moving the event to Texas. “They made a decision, let’s go with the grassroots,” he said, adding that he told the organizers it would be harder to get senators and Cabinet secretaries to make the trip, compared with when it was held across the water from D.C. at National Harbor. “I think it turned out perfectly,” he said, “although you don’t have the traditional big names. Even if you were in D.C. this year, you weren’t going to get them because of the war.”
3:55 p.m. Secrets is on the up escalator to the main stage as Truss passes by on the down escalator. She hoots when she realizes. At least someone recognizes her. A day earlier Secrets saw her on an international panel and sat beside a middle aged woman who hurriedly asked who she was when she came to speak.
5:12 p.m. Events are starting to wind down. Secrets has been eyeing the water gun game in the expo hall all day. Maureen Bannon, a former Army officer who served in Iraq and who happens to be Steve Bannon’s daughter, agrees to throw down. The idea is to aim your jet of water at the target and keep going until you fill it, triggering a very satisfying alarm bell (which has been irritating speakers and TV hosts all day). An elbow to the ribs ensures that Bannon comes off worst in the first round so we agree to make it the best of three. Secrets triumphs two to one despite Bannon adopting her own dirty tricks. Like father like daughter.
6:02 p.m. The exhibition hall booms to the sound of pop and rap artists. Real America’s Music is putting on a show. Secrets decamps to one of the lobby bars. Donors, strategists, and journalists rub shoulders, as VIP attendees disappear to their rooms to put on ties or sequins, or both, for one of the posh dinners.
7:12 p.m. Secrets is exhausted. It is time to decamp to a barbecue joint down the street and leave the plotting and scheming behind. Truss has not been spotted for more than three hours. Is she OK?
9:24 p.m. Fear not. A report reaches Secrets that, after asking British journalists to take her for dinner, Truss is spotted having a slap-up dinner at the convention center’s steakhouse with a table of Australian hacks.
The conference has been lacking in Trump administration bigwigs, although there is an actual Cabinet secretary speaking Friday, in the form of Education Secretary Linda McMahon. CPAC announced Thursday that HHS Secretary and MAHA champion Robert F Kennedy Jr. will appear, although it’s unclear when. But the conference has been reliant on foreign figures to fill gaps. On Saturday, Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran who has the most vocal and visible supporters here, will speak.
So what is the state of the MAGA movement at CPAC? For all the talk of divisions ahead of the conference, attendees agree on more than they don’t. They are for “America First” and skeptical of the war in Iran, but prepared to give Trump some room. They are overwhelmingly behind Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate primary against John Cornyn. And none of them are entirely sure who Truss is.
Lunchtime reading
Hitting the streets with the MAGA youth of South Korea: A former Korean prime minister is at CPAC today. And this is a great look at what happens when the MAGA movement goes global.
The Iran conflict is a boon for Russia’s ‘war machine.’ And it’s not just about oil: Beyond oil, a global scramble for natural gas and fertilizer supplies — also choked off by the Iran war — could further boost Russia’s financial gains.