Brandon Straka, a right-wing commentator, offered an unexpected assessment of Marjorie Taylor Greene at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
“A directive has gone out that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a traitor,” Mr. Straka told the CPAC crowd, referring to the former congresswoman from Georgia, who broke with President Trump last year after accusing him of drifting away from his “America First” promises. “And if you want to be part of the in crowd, it is mandatory that you must hate her, too.”
Mr. Straka was rejecting that directive. From the main stage of CPAC, he gave his audience permission to support Ms. Green, even if doing so might be taken by some as a tacit criticism of Mr. Trump. “When did we become the left?” he asked. “When did we become hive-minded, mean and tribal?”
It was far from the only sign of the divisions roiling the conservative movement, which were on display this week at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center on the outskirts of Dallas, where CPAC staged its annual gathering.
Speaker after speaker warned about the fissures that have emerged since Mr. Trump began a war with Iran. The conflict has split his base over the nation’s role in global affairs and how fervently the United States should back Israel in foreign conflicts. It has also opened debates over the resurgence of antisemitism from some on the right.
Former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a critic of the Iran war, worried that Republicans were entering the midterm elections “with self-inflicted wounds,” while Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally who has warned against sending troops to the region, said Republican voters would have to decide for themselves what “America First actually stands for.”
CPAC organizers typically seek to establish orthodoxy with their roster of speakers. That hasn’t been difficult in recent years, given how steadfastly Mr. Trump’s base has embraced him and his priorities. That has been true even when those priorities have changed — and even when he has crossed what were previously seen as political red lines, such as whipping up the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol or being convicted of multiple felonies.
This year, organizers created space for dissenters, too.
Mr. Trump was elected to his second term on an America First agenda, viciously criticizing past presidents for becoming embroiled in foreign conflicts, and promising never to be pulled into what he called “forever wars.” He also pledged to make life more affordable for everyday Americans.
Mr. Trump skipped CPAC this year for the first time since 2016, so he did not get to see the fissures up close. His past appearances at the conference offered stark contrasts to where he has taken his presidency so far this term. At CPAC in 2024, Mr. Trump contrasted himself with those who had “gorged themselves on the spoils of endless wars.”
There remained plenty of evidence of the president’s broad support among the Republican base, especially on issues like immigration. Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, received a warm welcome as he discussed deportation statistics. So did Greg Bovino, the outgoing Border Patrol official, who took a bow after a rocky tenure as the face of Mr. Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Fierce supporters of the war were also well represented on panels with titles such as “No Nukes for Jihad” and “MAGA vs. Mullah Madness.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a vocal proponent of the conflict, is expected to speak at CPAC on Saturday.
Some advocates argue that the United States is taking limited and needed military action in Iran to curtail its nuclear program, a far cry from the prolonged conflicts of past administrations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their position was bolstered at CPAC by a raucous group of Iranian Americans who were thrilled by Mr. Trump’s decision.
Josh Hammer, a pro-Israel commentator, took direct aim at antiwar conservatives, calling out Megyn Kelly, the prominent podcaster; Mr. Gaetz; and Tucker Carlson, who has castigated the United States’ alliance with Israel and whose name attracted a smattering of boos throughout the conference. Such figures, Mr. Hammer argued from the main stage, were “explicitly anti-MAGA. In fact, they are just anti-American.”
Offering a contrary view: Mr. Bannon, who exhorted attendees to imagine sending their children and grandchildren into combat in a part of the world that “looks like the surface of the moon. It couldn’t be more foreign to folks in the United States.” (Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the United States did not need to put troops on the ground to achieve its goals.)
Mr. Gaetz, who was briefly Mr. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, criticized some efforts to cast war critics as antisemitic.
“Antisemitism isn’t hiding around every corner and every bush,” he said.
Some CPAC attendees took aim at some prominent right-wingers who were not in attendance, including Mr. Carlson and Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist influencer, arguing that they were part of the so-called “woke right.” By that, they were accusing them of blending aspects of conservatism with issues they associate with the left: identity politics and animosity toward Israel. Influential voices, including Mr. Fuentes and James Fishback, a Republican candidate for governor in Florida, have caused consternation on the right with their antisemitic rhetoric, as well as comments that have been widely condemned as racist.
“Some of these folks are speaking a viewpoint that is contrary to mainstream MAGA, and it’s very uncomfortable for some,” said James Payne, 57, a CPAC attendee. “I see some of these guys and go, ‘Whoa, I used to listen to him, and I’m not so sure I should be listening to him anymore.’”
Xaviaer DuRousseau, a pro-Israel conservative influencer, said he sympathized with those who wanted to avoid getting entangled in “another forever war.” But, he argued, “we’re not going to be there for decades — I doubt we’re even there for more than a few months.”
And Brooke Goldstein, a lawyer at the pro-Israel Lawfare Project, suggested that those who said Israel had dragged the United States into a conflict with Iran were revealing their bias.
“Calling American Jews ‘Israel First’ is the oldest antisemitic trick in the book,” she said.
Others were more circumspect about the war.
Alex Johnson, 26, was helping run a booth that was tallying opinions on the war by asking people to drop a pinto bean into a “yes” jar or a “no” jar. He said he occasionally listened to Mr. Tucker and Mr. Fuentes, and agreed with their interpretation of America First as prioritizing domestic issues such as affordability over foreign conflicts.
Mr. Johnson said young people had cast most of the antiwar votes in the unscientific bean poll.
“A lot of Gen Zers feel like we’re going to have to be the ones to carry the burden of the war,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re going to be the ones sent off; we’re going to be the ones that have to fight and die.”
Most CPAC attendees remained steadfast in their praise of Mr. Trump himself, even as they debated his vision. But back on the main stage, Mr. Straka came the closest to critiquing the president.
“If you call yourself a patriot but you believe that it is your obligation to only praise or only worship your president, then you must not be a patriot of this country,” he said. “Because leader worship is how citizens behave in nations that aren’t free.”
Kellen Browning is a Times political reporter based in San Francisco.
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