Overview

• The annual National Conservatism Conference, once fringe, convened lawmakers, senior administration officials and donors as the movement asserted itself as the GOP’s dominant force.
• Speakers included Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, budget director Russell Vought, border czar Tom Homan and Sen. Eric Schmitt, alongside controversial figures such as John Eastman and Calvin Robinson.
• Supporters highlighted aligned actions in government, including cuts or threatened cuts to university funding, stepped-up deportations of undocumented immigrants, and moves to defund NPR and PBS.
• Vought attacked the Government Accountability Office after it deemed his latest rescissions push illegal, saying the watchdog “shouldn’t exist” and pledging aggressive use of executive authority.
• Conference programming emphasized a cultural agenda with panels such as “Overturn Obergefell” and speeches elevating Christian identity, restrictive immigration and challenges to claims of systemic racism.