For the first time in 15 years, President Donald Trump is opting out of attending the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a choice influenced by the ongoing conflict in Iran.

“It seems the dynamics between Trump and CPAC were bound to shift eventually, and the situation in Iran is likely a factor in this decision,” remarked CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp in an interview with the Daily Mail during the event.

CPAC has long been a magnet for large crowds eager to hear from conservative luminaries, including elected officials, aspiring candidates, and influential media personalities.

Traditionally hosted at the expansive Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland, just a stone’s throw from Washington, DC, the location has facilitated easy access for political figures.

This year, however, the conference relocated to the Gaylord Texan hotel and convention center in Grapevine, Texas, a mere few minutes from the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

Schlapp explained that the move to Dallas was a strategic decision aimed at better serving the conservative activists who form the core of CPAC’s audience.

‘They don’t want to be in DC,’ he said.

The central location of Dallas made it easier for attendees to travel from across the country to the conference but also placed special focus on the critical state for Republicans in the midterm elections.

The Chairman of the American Conservative Union Matt Schlapp speaks alongside his wife Mercedes during the Conservative Political Action Conference

Attendees pray during the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas 

‘I talked to the president about this,’ Schlapp said. ‘He’s a smart man. He understands the realities of the situation.’

President Trump, however, does not plan to appear at the conference this year and  prominent members of his family were also absent.

Trump’s potential successor Vice President JD Vance is also skipping the conference as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top cabinet officials.

The annual CPAC straw poll draws headlines each year, especially since it features the views from grass roots activists about the next presidential election.

In 2025, Vance easily won the 2028 poll with 61 percent support.

But support has been growing for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, thanks to his service to the president in some of the most high-stakes foreign policy efforts of his second term. 

Schlapp said that President Trump would always be welcome to speak at CPAC but activists were already grappling with the future of the conservative movement without him.

‘I don’t like the topic,’ he said. ‘I don’t look forward to having that conversation, but it was inevitable.’

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, and Todd Blanche, U.S. deputy attorney general

U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan attends the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas

Schlapp said that anyone seeking to serve as Trump’s successor should take lessons from the president about what it took to win elections.

‘Whoever wants to have the mantle of Trump should learn from Trump. When you called Donald Trump, he called you back. When you invited Donald Trump, he showed up. He was so available,’ he said. ‘If you want to follow in Trump’s footsteps, you have to have these virtues of being available, being quotable, being interactive with media, being interactive with activists, being interactive with leaders in the community.’

The highest ranking Trump administration officials attending the conference on Thursday was deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, White House border czar Tom Homan, and administrator for the centers for medicare and medicaid services Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Other top conservative news figures and podcasters from previous years are not present at the conference this year.

Instead of hosting the usual rotation of prominent conservative media figures like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and Mark Levin, Schlapp said he wanted to steer clear of the public ‘backbiting’ squabbles that divided the conservative movement over the war in Iran.

The decision was intentional, Schlapp said, to avoid a public display of feuding and infighting over the subject. 

Schlapp said he was broadly in support of the president’s decision to go to war in Iran, recalling that one of Trump’s earliest political speeches before running for president was a rally against former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal in 2015 in Washington, DC.

‘Most people here trust Trump. They trust his judgment,’ Schlapp said. ‘They believe that he and Marco Rubio have been very wise in how they’ve handled diplomacy and how they’ve handled the military. You trust him, and we’ll see how this goes.’

Reporter Nick Shirley waves during the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference

Isabel Brown, host of the Isabel Brown Show on the Daily Wire, attends the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference

 Citing the ‘action over words’ theme for the 2026 conference, Schlapp said he wanted to focus on who was ‘doing the work’ in the conservative movement.

New media figures like the emerging fraud investigator Nick Shirley, Daily Wire podcaster Isabel Brown, and social media star Alex Lorusso, or ALX, were featured on the stage for the first time.

Attendees cheered Shirley’s work exposing government fraud in left-wing states like Minnesota and California.

Schlapp said it was critical to the movement to feature new voices, recalling that Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September, was once one of those new activists who got their start at CPAC.

Turning Point’s success among young people, he said, was a good thing for the conservative movement.

‘I’m getting older,’ he said. ‘There are people that have been involved in the conservative movement for a long time, and then the beautiful thing of it, there’ll be new voices that come up.’