Trump to attack ‘Bush Republicans’ in CPAC speech

Former President Trump plans to attack Bush-era Republicans in his remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday and urge those in attendance to finish the job of transforming the GOP by backing him for the White House in 2024.

Trump is expected to deliver CPAC’s keynote address at roughly 5:30 p.m. in remarks that are expected to last roughly 90 minutes. Trump has been a staple of the annual gathering for years, delivering marquee speeches during and after his presidency.

The event, this year in National Harbor, Maryland, is now dominated by his most ardent supporters and he is expected to easily win the conference’s 2024 presidential straw poll.

“Trump has completely remade the party since he’s become president,” a Trump aide told Axios.

“He realized there’s a difference between what grassroots activists thought and what Bush Republicans in Washington, D.C., were trying to enact.”

CPAC has been diminished this year in the wake of allegations that conference boss Matt Schlapp groped a male staffer of Herschel Walker’s Georgia Senate campaign.

Schlapp, who has denied the allegation, was later served by a lawsuit from the anonymous accuser. Big stars like former Vice President Pence, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel have all been MIA.