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I have arrived at CPAC. Today’s first session features Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Mark Meadows and Matt Schlapp. They are saying that there is no collusion. The session is called Marketing Marxism: There’s Nothing New About the Green New Deal.
Matt Schlapp says that people say Trump is dishonest, but what’s more honest than going in front of a huge rally with lots of cameras and telling people what he really thinks about tough issues?
How much CPAC should I tweet?
Sen. Mike Lee gave a conventional speech about federalism and the separation of powers, saying presidents of both parties have deviated from the way it should be. (I want to tweet normal stuff as well as the weird stuff - it's not all a weirdness carnival here.)
Coming up, in order: NRA president Ollie North, former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, Charlie Kirk, My Pillow guy Mike Lindell, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, calls Trump "the most productive pro-life president in history...he is surpassing our hopes." She says he will be re-elected "with the muscle of the pro-life movement solidly behind him."
"To make America great again, Roe must go and abortion must end," Dannenfelser says to cheers.
NRA president Ollie North gets a standing ovation. He says there aren't gun control advocates. Rather, he says, "They ought to call themselves what they really are: the vanguard of the Disarm America movement."
Ollie North's speech on gun rights is soft-spoken and conventional. NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre delivered unhingedly conspiratorial screeds at CPAC in 2017 and 2018.
"I ask you to pray for the NRA," Ollie North says. He concludes: "The NRA is freedom's safest place."
Oh, "Dr. Sebastian Gorka" is coming out before Charlie Kirk. He wasn't on the schedule at this point.
Sebastian Gorka tells a story about learning as a child that his dad had his hands tied behind his back by communist secret police. He then says: "That is the threat to America. At that point I knew that socialism isn't just theoretical, it is a real threat."
Gorka lists lots of bad things Vladimir Putin has done. "However, here's the good news, Russia is not a superpower, it's not the Soviet Union, thanks in part to the president of the United States." He claims Trump has driven energy prices so low that he is diminishing Russia.
Sebastian Gorka asks people to go look something up on their favourite search engine. He then says, "It better not be Google. We don't like Google."
Sebastian Gorka calls Michael Cohen a "ratfink," I think, and gets applause.
Sebastian Gorka says the Green New Deal is like a watermelon because it's red, like communist red, on the inside. He says, "They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved."
Charlie Kirk says that Donald Trump hasn't changed the left, he has revealed them: "This is who they have always been. They have always hated this country.” He says people need to stop saying liberals "mean well," since they actually want to "destroy this country from within."
Charlie Kirk gets a standing ovation from the majority of the crowd for his words on how Democrats do not "mean well."
Charlie Kirk says Donald Trump is the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan, "if not in American history." Among other things, he says Trump has "called out the relationship between big business and big government."
After his lengthy praise of Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk warns of how universities are warping students' minds: “Students are being taught that there is no such thing as objective truth…that you can create your own right and wrong."
My Pillow's Mike Lindell gets a partial standing ovation. He says that, before Trump came along, "quite frankly, it looked like the end times prophesized in the Bible." He says he knew nothing about politics, but he could sense "something miraculous" was happening with Trump.
My Pillow man Mike Lindell on Trump: "The greatest president in history. Of course he is. He was chosen by God." A little applause.
A Daily Caller guy is "interviewing" RNC chair Ronna McDaniel on stage. He recites a list of Democratic scandals and controversies. "Why do they pay you?" he says, chuckling, telling McDaniel that Dems are doing her job for her.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel says that the party has to "educate" people on what "socialism" means -- go and "talk about Venezuela."
Asked what she'll do if John Kasich or Larry Hogan launches a primary challenge to Trump, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel says, "They have the right to jump in and lose. That's fine. They will lose horribly."
To combat Democratic promises of free college, McDaniel says Republicans need to go to college campuses and tell students, “We have kids who can’t read right now in elementary schools…let’s fix the education system we have right now.”
McDaniel also argues that Republicans can stop college students by being seduced by Dem promises of free college by telling them “go look who’s running your school...they are all liberal," and they are the reason tuition is so high. (No.)
Energy Secretary Rick Perry says the U.S. economy is "stronger than garlic." He has previously called Ted Cruz stronger than garlic (2012) and himself stronger than garlic on border security (2015), among other stronger than garlics.
Rick Perry says that when you cross from north Pennsylvania into New York, you see "old-time poverty that we'd hoped we'd gotten past in this country." He claims it's because of the state's restrictive energy policies. There is also such poverty in Texas, and Pennsylvania.
CPAC is hearing a discussion of religion and liberty. BlazeTV's Allie Stuckey says that people tell people like her to keep their religion out of the public square even as they push the “religion of social justice," with "intersectionality" and "postmodernism."
There are a couple of CPAC sessions on criminal justice reform. NFL linebacker and activist Demario Davis is on stage criticizing cash bail and incentives for incarceration. He applauds progressive Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner.
Fox News's Laura Ingraham is giving a speech now. She begins, "It's good to see all of our friends, and members of the media."
Ingraham: "Reagan walked away in Reykjavík and Trump walked away in Hanoi. Which was the best outcome once again. He's doing the right thing for the American people." She then proceeds to mock CNN's Jim Acosta, who gets booed after she unconvincingly asks people not to boo.
CPAC speakers are talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more than any other Democrat. Ingraham says she takes Ocasio-Cortez seriously because "she is the thought leader of the Democrat Party right now. She is.”
Ocasio-Cortez is the primary individual villain of CPAC so far. The main thematic target is "socialism." The specific proposal being talked about most is the Green New Deal.
Trudeau's SNC-Lavalin scandal gets mentioned at CPAC: Ingraham gloats that “Justin Trudeau’s glow is dimming. He’s in the middle of his own scandal…he's in trouble."
Ingraham: "We are the party of optimism and happiness." Within a minute, she says Democrats like infanticide.
Ingraham advises conservatives who are being called racist and misogynist by the left to do the following: "Look right back at them and say, 'You’re the real racist, you’re the real misogynist.'"
Ingraham says there are "three screens flashing red" for her to stop speaking, but she doesn't care. "Rules don't matter," she says. She then brings out her daughter, who gets a standing ovation.
CPAC will now hear from Maj Toure, founder of the group Black Guns Matter. There is a mass lunch exodus, which I will join.
In the CPAC Expo zone, I have found a cardboard Ronald Reagan and a cardboard Charlie Kirk. There is lipstick on the Charlie Kirk. 
There is a large painting of Donald Trump, titled Unafraid and Unashamed.
Back on the main stage, Pawn Stars man Rick Harrison is decrying socialism.
Trump’s campaign fundraising committee is here selling Space Force hats, among other hats.
Van Jones is now appearing on the CPAC stage to talk criminal justice reform with American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp. They'll be interviewed by Saagar Enjeti from the Daily Caller.
Asked about getting blowback from "the left" for being here and working with Trump on criminal justice reform, Van Jones says: "If you're on Twitter calling me a sellout...if you're on Twitter, you're not in federal prison...I care about the people who are locked up."
Van Jones says he has never seen a bird fly "with only a left wing," "even in Berkeley," nor "only a right wing." The two sides need each other, he says.
Matt Schlapp: "It is a strange thing that every modern Republican president has a special counsel. Each and every one." He says "you know why they call them 'special?' It shouldn't happen every time."
Van Jones says that if you think it's hard to be a top government official having a prosecutor come after you, think about what it's like for poor people.
Van Jones tells CPAC that Muslim families are awesome and that undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than the rest of us. A significant number of people in the crowd boo him after the part about undocumented immigrants.
Now another CPAC session on criminal justice reform, an interview with prisoner turned reform activist Pat Nolan, former California Republican legislative leader who pleaded guilty to racketeering. This stuff is a departure from the red-meat vibe of a lot of the other sessions.
Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow lists several economic accomplishments under Trump, then says, "I'll let the ankle-biters just bite our ankles."
Kudlow says this is his request to people: "Put socialism on trial. That’s what I’m asking you to do. I don’t want us to stand idly by. I don’t want to let this stuff fester...I want to convict socialism."
Kudlow: "The old Soviet Union proved it won’t work and it can’t work." Many of the speakers are talking about "socialism" as if Democrats are running on dictatorial Marxism rather than (some of them on) social-democratic policies in the style of other wealthy democracies.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, also a celebrated neurosurgeon, is on stage now to speak against abortion.
Housing Secretary Ben Carson provides a graphic description of abortion, calls it "barbaric" and "murder." Carson scoffs at abortion for "the health of the mother," saying, "What about the mother's mental health"? (Obviously, millions of women who get abortions are totally fine.)
"I am so grateful that we have the most pro-life president in my lifetime," says Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America. "Thank you, Donald J. Trump, for standing up for human life."
Sen. Lindsey Graham gets an enthusiastic standing ovation. He says of Kim Jong Un: he couldn't be here, and "if he doesn't get a deal with Trump, he won't be anywhere much longer."
Graham: "Why is Kavanaugh on the court? 'Cause Trump is tough." He says that Trump standing by Kavanaugh when others wanted him to pick someone else after Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault "is truly draining the swamp."
Graham recounts his rough relationship start with Trump, then says things are better now: "I like him and he likes him."
I am signing off from CPAC for today. The remaining speakers this afternoon include Cabinet members Alex Acosta, Alex Azar and Linda McMahon. The day will be concluded by Diamond and Silk.
Trump is scheduled for Saturday morning.
