Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Join us as we bring coverage from CPAC in Dallas for the rest of the week. Today, we look at the broader conservative movement and whether CPAC can regain its lost influence and energy and ask Matt Schlapp why he has moved the event to Texas. Plus, just what was the book that Markwayne Mullin used at his swearing-in ceremony …
Conservatives converge on Texas this week with awkward questions about Iran, midterm elections, and the future of Trumpism without Donald Trump looming over them.
Threaded through all of that is another question: Is the annual Conservative Political Action Conference still the premier gathering of the Republican movement?
Josh Hammer, a political commentator who is speaking at the conference, said Turning Point USA had become the “hot new game in town,” putting CPAC in a tough spot.
“Well, now all of a sudden, Charlie [Kirk] has been tragically assassinated,” he said.
“Turning Point finds itself in something of a leadership crisis.
“So it’s a very interesting opportunity for CPAC to kind of try to reemerge as the go-to conservative conference.”
CPAC was long hailed as an influential meet-up that could launch careers and set agendas. Trump has appeared almost every year since 2011.
Its success spawned international versions in Brazil, Argentina, Hungary, and beyond.
But attendees of the past two CPACs, which were held just outside Washington, said the event had a quieter vibe. The exhibitor hall, often one of the most vibrant parts of the conference, with Trump merchandise, food stands, and major corporate sponsors, had empty space.
Old-fashioned conservatives, once the key constituent of the conference, also feel abandoned as it leaned hard into Trump and MAGA causes.
Against that backdrop, Kirk’s youth movement had gone from strength to strength.
“What started as a hundred kids — look around, everybody — is now the largest event in the conservative movement,” Kirk said at its AmFest event in 2023.
After Trump’s 2024 election victory, Kirk was a fixture at Mar-a-Lago, interviewing personnel and helping build the new administration.
He was a frequent visitor to the White House before his killing in September 2025.
Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of the National Pulse, said CPAC had once straddled all the wings of the Republican movement — conservative, Libertarian, neocons, “everyone thrashing it out.”
“It showcased the big tent of the political Right,” he said. “When Turning Point came along, stressing much more youth activity, they sort of ate CPAC’s lunch, because, you know, the energy at CPAC was not coming from the over-40 crowd.”
On Wednesday, conservatives will arrive just outside Dallas for their annual get-together. Speakers include speakers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), YouTube journalist Nick Shirley, and Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser.
Chairman Matt Schlapp said the theme this year was “actions over words”. The conference, he said, would focus less on congressional leaders and splits between high-profile influencers and more on grassroots success that can be replicated across the nation.
He said he remembered Kirk speaking at CPAC more than a decade ago, surrounded by dozens of children dressed in red T-shirts.
And he dismissed the idea that one group had prospered at the expense of the other.
“CPAC’s done nothing but increase,” he said, at the same time that Turning Point had become the leading organization for young people.
“The problem in America is not too many conservative groups getting big. It’s that we don’t have enough.”
He added that when he visited a Turning Point event, an attendee told him it was going to grow bigger than CPAC.
“I told him, ‘I hope so,’” he said. “Then I can retire.”
But it is not just CPAC that has been struggling, according to Matt K. Lewis, conservative writer and podcaster. He said Trump had effectively destroyed the conservative movement.
Gone were the days when politicians would have to check with Concerned Women for America, the Club for Growth, or the Family Research Council before hitting send on a release.
Maybe Kirk’s death does leave a void, but it won’t be CPAC filling it, he added.
“It’s like saying Facebook isn’t the behemoth they were, you know, and someone at MySpace says, ‘Hey, we’re back, baby,’” he said.
Schlapp on Washington, Dallas, and Trump
As well as discussing Turning Point and Kirk, Schlapp answered questions on a range of other questions, including why CPAC had left its usual home near Washington and whether Trump was likely to attend. Here are his answers.
So why Dallas? Why hold it in Dallas this time?
Quite frankly, it’s impossible to do business in a big, blue city. You just can’t do it anymore. They don’t want us. You know, the stuff I have to deal with behind the scenes that I haven’t talked about is outrageous.
What sort of thing?
How about like, just constantly stopping traffic flow into the hotel for you know … you name the reason. I don’t blame local law enforcement for that, but I blame the politicized governments of Maryland, D.C., and now Virginia. So, you know, think about it. Our nation’s capital is now just completely captive to very leftist governments. And it’s, it spells real doom for the city and the nation.
Is Donald Trump going to attend? (Reports since the interview suggest he will not)
I hope so, but you never really know until the end. I’ve been talking with him. I think this year’s a bit unique because of what’s going on in Iran, right? And I respect the fact that he needs to stay close as things develop, but I’m hopeful that he’ll come.
Markwayne Mullin’s lessons in leadership
Did anyone else notice anything odd about the book used by Markwayne Mullin when he was sworn in as homeland security secretary yesterday? It was a leadership bible as much as an actual Bible.
Look closely. The title is: The Maxwell Leadership Bible. In its pages, leadership guru John C. Maxwell teases out his 21 laws of leadership and profiles of leadership drawn from the text of the Bible.
Of course, it doesn’t matter what book is used — Bible, Torah, Quran, anything. In fact, you don’t need a book at all for the ceremonial swearing-in. It’s only really there to make the photos look nice.
Lunchtime reading
Partisan brawl in Virginia muddles Spanberger’s message of moderation: When Abigail Spanberger was elected governor of Virginia, she was hailed as a model for Democrats to win across the country. But now she is locked in a partisan brawl over redistricting.
Are you sure you know what ‘gaslighting’ is? “The verb was inspired by Patrick Hamilton’s 1930s play Gas Light, but the better-known reference is George Cukor’s popular 1944 film adaptation starring Ingrid Bergman.”
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