I went to America’s biggest Donald Trump fan convention – and it was every bit as wild as you’d expect.
CPAC is an annual gathering of right-wingers – mostly Republicans – which has taken place for the last couple of years at the Gaylord Resort in National Harbour, just outside Washington DC.
In recent years it’s seemed a little bit irrelevant – with entertaining, but inconsequential figures from the mad end of Fox News giving speeches from the stage.
And with MAGA back in charge of Washington, the line-up is no less insane – but suddenly the same weird people are one degree of separation from America’s nuclear codes.
Figures like bedding and conspiracy theory magnate Mike Lindell, militant wind-up merchant Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller – the far-right Renfield to Trump’s Prince of Darkness – all lined up to genuflect for the Donald at the biggest gathering of wingnuts outside of a Screwfix depot.
And downstairs in the exhibition, there was no end of weird sponsors and merch stands looking to cash in on the most bootleggable brand in Presidential history.
Here’s a few of the wildest things I saw at CPAC 2025.
I got to shoot arrows at a donkey representing DEI
While it made for decent photographs, the stall where you could shoot arrows at pictures of donkeys that represented Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, alongside other focuses of MAGA anger needed a bit more explanation than it was really worth.
There was a man selling Donald Trump cigars
Because of course there was. I can’t think of anything to better to represent the famously non-smoking, teetotal President of the United States than a massive stogie.
They were rolled in the Dominican Republic, we were informed, and filled with tobacco “from all around the world”.
There was a $2,500 Donald Trump watch
I’m not an expert on timepieces – and I hate to be mean to the lady who showed us round her stall, who was very friendly and has clearly picked a growth industry.
But my jaw dropped when she told me this Donald Trump watch – which could be charitably described as “the kind of blingy tat you might expect to get out of a gumball machine” – was on sale for two-and-a-half grand.
Also on sale for a much more reasonable $400 were a pair of Donald Trump sneakers – which are no-brand Jordan knockoffs spraypainted gold.
On the other hand, the Trump socks – complete with fluffy fringe and a miniature comb to keep it orderly – were quite fun.
January 6th rioters have become minor celebrities in Trumpworld
A huge posse of people who had been imprisoned – and eventually pardoned by Trump – over their various roles in the violent insurrection on January 6th were in attendance.
And if anyone left in the Republican Party felt queasy about the ‘J6ers’ – many of whom committed violent acts during the shocking attempted coup d’etat – being held up as heroes of Trump’s revolution, they weren’t at CPAC.
They wandered the halls, posing for photos – many of them carrying their Presidential pardon certificates to show to fans.
By the last day of the conference there were people openly striding through the conference wearing the black and yellow colours of the neo-fascist Proud Boys – including senior members of the thug squad.
I went to a ridiculous White House after-party
It’s not important how this came to pass, but on Thursday night around 11pm, I found myself in a $2.6m penthouse apartment, watching a moderately famous rapper – Kodak Black – perform in the living room.
This was at a semi-official after-party for a White House event marking Black History month. There were Trump staffers, former judges and professional bodybuilders among the 200 or so people crammed into the 10,000 sq ft loft – which was formerly owned, a bartender informed me, by ex-Washington Wizards NBA player Dwight Howard.
In the luxurious open kitchen diner sat a huge platter containing hundreds of McNuggets, to which flagging guests could help themselves.
The entranceway was dominated by a huge, taxidermied buffalo and there was a DJ who kept shouting out to all the Pisces in the audience (seriously), as well as shouting “who all voted for Trump?”
That even by this point I was a little surprised by the number of cheers in response perhaps explains why his re-election was so poorly predicted.
Elon Musk waved around a chainsaw
The most objectively unhinged moment of the weekend, by some stretch, was when Elon Musk showed up for an unscheduled Q&A session on the main stage.
He was followed onstage by Argentine President Javier Milei – who was there for the whole conference, despite having a country to run – and who was brandishing an enormous silver-plated chainsaw. A gift for the DOGEfather to aid in his bid to cut through government red tape.
Musk proceeded to wave the chainsaw around, shouting “wooo, chainsaw! Yeahhhh” like an excited teenager.
Liz Truss was at the conference for some reason
It was the second consecutive appearance on the CPAC stage for Britain’s least successful Prime Minister. Nobody really understood why she was there, but she gave a speech about people being locked up for nasty tweets in London to a smattering of applause.
She announced the forthcoming launch of her own “Free Speech Media Network” in the UK, which we can all look forward to in the summer.
And she got absolutely toasted by Steve Bannon in a supposedly friendly interview, when he managed to get her to talk about conspiracy theories suggesting the Bank of England is lying about the amount of gold it has.
She didn’t really fancy a chat
We caught up with Ms Truss earlier in the day, but for some reason she didn’t feel like answering questions from the Mirror.
(She was happy to take questions from Steve Bannon, whom the night before had been accused of performing a Nazi salute on stage – something he denied. And she happily gave a sit-down to the Epoch Times, a far-right media organisation affiliated with the Falun Gong religious movement.)
Nigel Farage was also there
The Reform UK leader hardly ever misses an opportunity to speak on the same stage as his buddy Donald Trump.
He spoke shortly after Liz Truss on the main stage, and on a similar subject – suggesting “you can’t say anything in Britain any more or they throw you in jail.”
Nigel Farage has never, to my knowledge, been threatened with prison time.
Donald Trump’s speech was a celebration of awfulness
It was the Donald’s first big rally-style speech since returning to the White House, and he seemed to be enjoying himself.
The speech was long (about 75 minutes), and a greatest hits of Trumpisms – from ‘Crooked Joe’ to ‘Pocahontas’ to Rachel Maddow’s ratings. He lied about the 2020 election being rigged and branded undocumented immigrants “monsters”.
He came on to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and went off to YMCA.
He thanked the January 6th rioters and gave a shout outs to pillow-hawking conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and Nigel Farage – though not to Liz Truss; awkward.
And throughout he looked delighted to be very much preaching to the choir.
Just before he came onstage, a straw poll of attendees found 99% approval among CPAC attendees – evidence if nothing else that the formerly Reaganite annual gathering has been fully consumed by the MAGA machine.
The whole thing ended with a stand-up row between a Trump supporter and the one peaceful protester who made it inside
At the end of the conference, we passed a lone older gentleman sitting on a bench in a corridor of the Gaylord National Harbour resort. On closer inspection, we realised his T-shirt read: “F*** TRUMP – And f*** you for voting for him”.
So we had a chat. His name, he said was Lewis Bracey, and he was a former police officer who had worked with the Department of Defence. He was there on his own to protest against the newly minted President – and the people who voted for him – because he believed Trump had “disrespected” America’s armed forces.
It didn’t take long before a conference attendee in a MAGA hat arrived to shout at him.
