welcome to this special 8:00 hour of the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in washington and we begin this hour with an emotional anniversary of a pivotal moment in american history. on a busy weekend when the race for the white house was taking shape. president joe biden was in selma, alabama, today for the anniversary of bloody sunday, and a speech before some of the country s most prominent civil rights leaders. while outside washington, a very different scene in a very different speech, as former president donald trump spoke to the conservative political action conference, vowing retribution in his words. and earlier today in california, the politician who could be trump s biggest rival for the gop nomination in 2024, florida governor ron desantis, speaking at the ronald reagan library. but we begin in selma, alabama, with arlette saenz. arlette, what can you tell us? jim, president biden used the anniversary of bloody sunday as an historic moment in civil rights history,
about cpac. you used to go with trump to cpac. how surprising was it to see him winning that straw poll, giving the headliner speech, despite all of these investigations into his actions before, during, and after his presidency. did you think that he would be at this point right now? by the way, it s like going to a bingo parlor, you re the only one there, and hey, i won bin go. he s the only one that s there! i mean, other than nikki haley, who else hads announced? cpac right now is not the cpac of before, when actually i think i saw you there and so many other people. that place was packed, wall-to-wall people. if you look to see don s the donald s speech that there s, 60% of the room is completely voud. there s empty chairs everywhere. when i was there with him, there was standing room only. nufld, you re playing to probably 45% of what the general crowd is. this entire cpac, like matt