Midterm campaign Trump debuts at CPAC The president abandoned his talking points in his speech to conservative activists in favor of reviving greatest-hits lines from his campaign. 
 
 President Donald Trump abandoned a scripted speech to conservatives on Friday to launch into a greatest hits roster of lines from his 2016 campaign, marking a return to candidate mode as he begins campaigning for Republicans in the midterm elections. 
 
 The speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference was supposed to highlight tax cuts and sanctions targeting North Korea, but veered instead to familiar tropes, including his victory over “crooked” Hillary Clinton and a spirited reading of “The Snake,” an allegorical song that candidate Trump used frequently to illustrate dangers posed by undocumented immigrants. 
 
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 It was a departure from the slightly more controlled, presidential Trump — who was back in evidence at the White House later in the day speaking alongside Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull — and a sign that the president plans to lean heavily on what’s worked for him in the past as he tries to boost Republicans in the November elections. 
 
 “It’s now his party. It’s now his conservative movement and there are no challengers. This was like a victory speech,” said Ed Rollins, lead strategist for the pro-Trump Great America super PAC. “It was the kickoff to the 2018 campaign — and the 2020.” 
 
 Calling his first 365 days “the most successful first year in the history of the presidency”, Trump went off script to rattle through a list of superlative achievements — the “biggest” tax cuts, “heaviest” sanctions and record firearms prosecutions. 
 
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 “I think now we’ve proved that I’m a conservative, right?” Trump told the crowd, as he ran over his allotted time. “We have put more great conservative ideas into use than perhaps ever before in American history.” 
 
 Trump warned that complacency in November’s elections could lead to Democratic gains in Congress and, in turn, gun control and higher taxes. 
 
 His revival of familiar themes — including not just “crooked” Hillary but also the “very, very crooked” media — prompted chants of “USA” and “Lock her up!” from the crowd at the National Harbor convention center just south of Washington. 
 
 Republicans, who control the House and Senate, have advanced their agenda sometimes in spite of the president. Going into this year’s midterms, it’s far from certain that Trump, or the party, can translate those accomplishments into congressional gains. 
 
 Democrats are defending 25 Senate seats, including 10 in states that supported Trump over Clinton in 2016, compared with Republicans’ eight. Still, Democrats hope to capitalize on Trump’s low approval ratings, scandals and an investigation into Russian campaign meddling to pare or eliminate Republican majorities in the House and Senate. 
 
 As Trump basked in CPAC’s friendly glow, a former campaign aide, Rick Gates, was pleading guilty to charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller in a deal that requires Gates to cooperate with Mueller's prosecution of Paul Manafort, Gates' former business partner and Trump’s onetime chairman. 
 
 “He made it very clear he’s going to campaign very aggressively in 2018,” Rollins said. “Whether that’s good or bad we’ll find out.” 
 
 Trump urged the audience — about 1,000 people — not to get complacent. 
 
 “We have a problem: We need more Republicans,” Trump said. “We have to worry — right now, we have a big race coming up in '18. You have to get out. You have to just get that enthusiasm. Keep it going.” 
 
 “If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn't believe, they'll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen,” Trump said. 
 
 Excerpts of the speech released before Trump took the stage suggested he would spotlight his administration’s announcement of sanctions on North Korea, advertised as the “LARGEST EVER.” But Trump mentioned the sanctions only as he wound up his remarks, and only, he said, “because people have asked” — without including details. 
 
 Trump’s Friday address marked the second consecutive year he spoke at the CPAC summit. With the president’s conservative bona fides now cemented, the venue this year became an important event for rallying his base. 
 
 CPAC is organized by American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp, whose wife, Mercedes Schlapp, is a White House adviser for strategic communications. 
 
 Trump had a lukewarm welcome at CPAC last year. This year the president owned the crowd, but the gathering prompted furious debate among conservatives for its Trump-friendly list of speakers, which included Sebastian Gorka, a former White House aide and alt-right hero, and Marion Le Pen, the niece of French National Front Party chief Marine Le Pen. 
 
 Yesterday, Trump stuck to his conservative message. A week after a deadly school shooting that killed 17 in Parkland, Florida, he gave little ground on gun control. He called for an end to gun-free school zones and said teachers should be armed. 
 
 “Well-trained, gun-adept teachers and coaches should be able to carry concealed firearms,” Trump said. “A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened.” 
 
 The president touted his deregulatory agenda and claimed that “Obamacare is just being wiped out” after Congress repealed a requirement that individuals carry health insurance. 
 
 The president also paid homage to Billy Graham, the prominent American pastor and longtime presidential adviser who passed away this week at 99. 
 
 “We will never forget the historic crowds, the voice, the energy, and the profound faith of a preacher named Billy Graham,” Trump said. ||||| When President Donald Trump took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday morning, he clearly wanted to have some fun. 
 
 “You don’t mind if I go off script a little bit?” he asked the rowdy audience in Maryland. His prepared CPAC speech, after all, was “a little boring,” he said. 
 
 For more than an hour, Trump held court, largely eschewing a teleprompter filled with prepared remarks on North Korea sanctions and remembrances for Billy Graham and the victims of the Parkland, Fla. shooting, instead choosing to ramble enthusiastically about familiar themes in his typical campaign style. (In fact, new sanctions on North Korea were supposed to be a major part of his CPAC speech, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin scheduled to give a briefing on the news Friday morning. But Trump barely mentioned them, giving them just a brief nod at the tail end of nearly one hour and 15 minutes onstage.) 
 
 Early in his CPAC speech, Trump caught a glimpse of himself in a TV monitor and joked, “I try like hell to hide the bald spot,” turning around to show the audience the back of his head. He said his “administration has had the most successful first year in the history of the presidency,” touting the passage of the tax bill, confirmation of a record-number of circuit court judges and moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as some primary accomplishments. 
 
 And he returned to his election victory in 2016, criticizing the media and saying winning the electoral college is “much tougher” than winning the popular vote. (He did not win the popular vote.) The CPAC crowd started a robust chant of “lock her up!” when Trump mentioned Democrat Hillary Clinton, to which Trump responded that the Clintons have “committed a lot of atrocities.” 
 
 In another callback to his time on the campaign trail, Trump read the lyrics to Johnny Rivers’ “The Snake,” a song from the 1960s that tells of a woman taking in an injured snake, who then bites her, chiding her, “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.” He would often read it at campaign events talking about crimes committed by immigrants. 
 
 As Trump pulled the printed lyrics out of his pocket Friday morning, he instructed his audience explicitly, “You have to think of this in terms of immigration.” 
 
 During the off-script portion of his hour on the CPAC stage, Trump also tried to motivate the crowd for the November midterm elections – saying that if Democrats win, “they’ll take away your Second Amendment.” He asked the crowd to cheer for whether they’d rather have the Second Amendment right to bear arms or the tax cuts he passed last year, and the applause signaled a win for the Second Amendment. He didn’t mention the shooting in Florida that took the lives of 17 people until later in his CPAC speech, when he temporarily returned to prepared remarks. 
 
 Friday morning gave Trump the opportunity to flex his freewheeling campaign rhetoric in front of a supportive live audience. It’s what he seems to enjoy the most about his late-in-life career switch to politics, and it’s what he gets far less of as Commander-in-Chief than he did as an outsider candidate. 
 
 He seemed excited to talk about upcoming midterm elections, asking Republicans not to get “complacent” during the midterms. And looking ahead to winning a second term in 2020, Trump said, “Hopefully we’re going to do that very easily.” ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpWhite House revises statement saying Iran 'has' secret nuclear weapons program DOJ files charges against 11 suspected 'caravan' members for illegal border crossing Mueller planned to ask Trump about Manafort's campaign outreach to Moscow: report MORE told the Conservative Political Action Committee on Friday that if Democrats come into power, they will “take away your Second Amendment.” 
 
 “They'll take away your Second Amendment,” Trump said. “Remember that.” 
 
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 Speaking a little more than a week after the shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead one day after he offered support for modest gun control proposals, Trump offered some red meat for the conservative crowd and vowed to protect gun rights. 
 
 Cheered on by the crowd, Trump told the audience that they must come out in force to beat history and prevent the GOP from losing congressional seats in this fall's midterms to Democrats. The president's party typically loses seats in a midterm election. 
 
 "Don't be complacent,” Trump said. “If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn't believe, they'll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen.” 
 
 
 
 Trump broke from the script to ask the crowd which one they would prefer to keep: tax cuts or gun rights. The crowd exploded with cheers about protecting their gun rights. 
 
 
 
 Trump is walking a fine line with conservatives and the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of his biggest backers during his presidential campaign. 
 
 The president is advocating for several new policies that put him at odds with the NRA, including expanded background checks, higher age restrictions on gun purchases and banning a device, known as a bump stock, that enables semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly. 
 
 
 
 But the president said he’s been in contact with the NRA and that they’ll get on board with some of his proposals. 
 
 
 
 “I can speak for all of the senators and congressmen and congresswomen, all the people in this room that are involved in this decision, that we will act, we will do something,” Trump said. “We will act.” 
 
 
 
 Democrats are eager to achieve broader gun control measures and say Trump’s proposals do not go far enough. 
 
 
 
 The president is also proposing arming some school officials so they can fight back against active shooters, which many gun control activists oppose. 
 
 
 
 “Why do we protect our airports and our banks, our government buildings, but not our schools?,” Trump said. “It is time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. We don't want them in our schools. We don't want them. When we declare our schools to be gun free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger.” 
 
 
 
 The national debate over gun control has exploded over the last week following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. 
 
 Students across the nation have staged walkouts, participated in town hall events and organized protests to demand action be taken on gun control. 
 
 
 
 The president met with families of victims and survivors of the shooting at the White House this week and has said the emotional testimony he heard from them has moved him to act. 
 
 
 
 “There are not enough tears in the world to express our sadness and anguish for her family, and for every family that has lost a precious loved one,” Trump said. “No family should ever save and ever have to go in and suffer the way these families have suffered. They have suffered beyond anything that I have ever witnessed.”
– “You don’t mind if I go off script a little bit?” President Trump asked the audience Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Time reports the president, admitting his prepared remarks were "a little boring," mostly ignored the teleprompter (including a segment on new North Korean sanctions) during his nearly 75-minute speech. For Trump, going off script mostly meant getting back to some of his favorite rally topics: the size of his election victory, having "the most successful first year in the history of the presidency," and "atrocities" committed by the Clintons (complete with chants of "lock her up"). The president warned of the danger and treachery of immigrants, reciting The Snake by Al Wilson. Trump regularly recited lyrics from the 1960s song during his campaign. It culminates with the line, "You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in." Trump also addressed the topic of the moment: guns. "When we declare our schools to be gun-free zones it just puts our students in more danger, far more danger—well-trained gun-adept teachers and coaches should be able to carry concealed firearms," Politico quotes Trump as saying. Repeating his call to arm teachers, he added: “A teacher would have shot the hell out of [the Parkland shooter] before he knew what happened." Trump tried to fire up the audience for the 2018 midterms, warning them not to get complacent and allow Democrats to take control of Congress, the Hill reports. “If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn't believe, they'll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen.”