all right. duelling presidential candidates, you re going to have donald trump speaking at cpac tonight in maryland and also, ron desantis at a club for growth private donor event in palm beach, florida. so, he, that is governor desantis is not opting to attend cpac. don t know whether that will hurt or health. but now the latest from cpac in maryland. good morning to you, former president trump is likely to get a warm welcome when he takes the stage behind me later on this afternoon. he is the final speaker at this year s cpac event. as you mentioned there are notable names missing, including florida governor ron desantis. he decide today skip the conference. he s spoken to it in the past. i would say we ve seen a smaller turnout this year compared to the last two years. this is the first time it was in maryland since it was in florida during the pandemic. organizers say they re with the
the group has publicly to ties with trump and didn t even bother to invite him to his event this weekend, which is, you know, being held just a few miles down the road. from mar-a-lago. joining me now is nbc s vaughn hillyard, standing but at the cpac event, the brave van halen. he s been there for the last few days. vaughn. they for. cpac. what s the latest, my friend? and still day is the big one. donald trump, michael, will be taking the stage here to cap it off here. later on this evening, but when you look at the lineup that has a tendency at cpac here, they are by and large allies of donald trump now. , yes, there s nikki haley, who of course was at one time in ally of donald trump, when serving as the u.n. ambassador during the trump administration, but she did walk into the arena here and she never named him by
and what is ron desantis not doing there, donald trump did not go in 2016. what s the fallout for that. from a republican fundraiser, over at real clear politics, phil, begin with you and end with you whether there s any risk for ron desantis not to go to the cpac event? well, i think the prize from cpac is that straw poll and we ve already got a pretty good guess who is going to win number one, obviously, this is the most trump friendly territory outside of mar-a-lago. rather than forcing that head to head match-up early on, i think what the desantis folks have done is they ve put points on the board by going around the country. the governor was in florida, he s going to be going to california. you ve mentioned the donor retreat in palm springs. i think that the plan for the desantis folks now is to build his name i.d., and point on the
glenn youngkin. i don t think anybody is going to miss them. even though pence and desantis are not here, it s the glass roots people who are here. and they are the ones who truly make the difference. how are you feeling so far? off stage cpac s organizers drawing much of the media spotlight cpac chairman matt schlapp faces alingses he groped a male campaign aide working on herschel walker s senate bid. schlapp denies the allegations calling it quote a legal matter. organizers call the controversy not impacting. even as questions linger if cpac still holed influence it has for years. today s cpac event is just wrapping up. a few people still left here in the bathroom at the end of the conference. we will get the results of the traditional cpac straw poll. all of the announced 2020 candidates are on the ballot a few other names, too. bret, given the crowd i have seen so far at this conference i would imagine trump is likely to come out on top. bret? bret: mark meredith live in
so, where does the republican party stand on the issue of ukraine and vladir putin? we might well find out this week the party is heading to 0ralando the party is heading to orlando for the annual cpac event. no prizes for guessing who is the keynote speaker on saturday? it is the former president, who still has an iron grip on the party, although the problems are piling up. we ll discuss in a moment. traditionally, the republicans have been pretty tough on russia, indeed many of them still are. think of ronald reagan. lindsay graham wants the toughest sanctions applied now. house minority leader kevin mccarthy has already called joe biden s ukraine policy too wea k . but the base, reflects the softer approach that was often but the base reflects the softer approach that was often displayed by donald trump. and you now have an array of conservative talking heads, like tucker carlson on fox news, that have asked we would share care about ukraine. he repeats many of president putin s