White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that President Trump does not think the Conservative Political Action Conference has become irrelevant.
Many questioned why Mr. Trump skipped the conservative confab — held this year in Grapevine, Texas — for the first time in a decade and wondered if he has written off the event entirely.
“No, I don’t think he believes that at all. In fact, he loves CPAC and has a very good relationship with the great people who run it — Mercedes and Matt Schlapp,” Ms. Leavitt told White House reporters at the press briefing.
She said of Mr. Trump’s rare no-show at CPAC, “It was just simply for scheduling purposes this year, with it being in Texas, it was best for the president’s schedule and what he has on his plate right now not to [attend].”
The president has been intensely occupied with the war against Iran that began on Feb. 28, while pushing the former regime in Tehran to surrender and abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Mr. Trump has been busy with the partial DHS shutdown that has caused TSA workers at airports around the country to go unpaid for two pay periods, leading to enormous security lines during the popular spring break travel season.
However, Mr. Trump did travel last weekend to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and spent time at his nearby golf club.
When CPAC was held near Washington, Mr. Trump attended regularly. Mr. Trump’s first CPAC was in 2011, when he toyed with the idea of running against President Obama in 2012 and sent 2,000 conservative activists into a frenzy when he talked about his “America First” agenda.
He decided against giving remarks the following year, when he opted not to launch a presidential bid, but he returned to CPAC in 2013 and delivered remarks that year, and every year thereafter through his first campaign, first term, second campaign, post Jan. 6 political exile, his third presidential campaign and his first year of his second term in office.
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this story.
