NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In a speech that amounted to an attempted post-inauguration victory lap, Donald Trump on Saturday hyped his first four weeks in office, even as much of his agenda is bogged down in court fights and has Republicans facing pushback in their districts.
Trump spent more than an hour addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, his first major rally-style address since formally being sworn in to office on Jan. 20.
The first weeks of Trump’s administration have overwhelmingly been defined by swift action to reduce the federal workforce and slash the size of government, an effort led by the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency.
Many of DOGE’s actions have been at least temporarily halted by courts, including by Trump-appointed judges, but he used his CPAC speech to frame his first few weeks in office as an unchallenged victory.
“Welcome back to the nation’s capital, where our movement is thriving, fighting, winning and dominating Washington like never before,” Trump told the packed conference hall at Gaylord National just outside of Washington.
Trump has scored some legal victories as he attempts to quickly reshape the federal government at a breakneck pace, but his early attempts to fulfill campaign promises for his MAGA base have been bogged down by skeptical judges.
In his speech at the conference, however, Trump ignored his early administration losses and framed even what were clear legal setbacks as victories.
“I signed an order that will end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens,” Trump told the crowd to loud applause.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined the Justice Department’s emergency request to implement Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, which extends citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of underlying immigration status.
Despite constitutional concerns, removing birthright citizenship was among Trump’s top focuses on the campaign trail.
A federal court also blocked Musk and DOGE’s access to sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, housed in the U.S. Treasury, something that sparked widespread concern from Democrats, some Republicans and government watchdogs.
In his first major political speech since his inauguration, though, Trump ignored this series of losses.
“We want the government smaller, more efficient,” Trump said. “We want to keep the best people, and we are not going to keep the worst people. … If they don’t report for work, we are firing them.”
Trump, without question, has used DOGE to take the most fast-paced action to shred federal government infrastructure in the history of the nation. There have been mass layoffs across several federal agencies, in some cases necessitating reversals when key personnel were accidentally let go.
The most notable was the Trump administration’s attempt to un-fire dozens of National Nuclear Security Administration staffers, most of whom were responsible for the critical task of overseeing the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
Trump also doubled down on his controversial economic policies that lean heavily on imposing tariffs on countries he perceives as attempting to take advantage of the United States. Trump has pushed to implement 10% tariffs on Chinese imports and 25% duties on steel and aluminum imports, plus a 25% duty on imports from Canada and Mexico, which has so far been suspended until at least the first week of March.
“We were very rich because of tariffs,” Trump told the CPAC crowd of the early 1900s, which he often romanticizes because it was a period marked by higher tariffs than have been implemented in modern times.
Trump’s tariff-heavy focus has gotten pushback from many in the business community, most recently from hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen, who also owns the New York Mets.
“Tariffs cannot be positive, OK? I mean, it’s a tax,” he said Friday at the FII Priority Summit in Miami Beach.
Trump also continued to boast about his administration’s deportation numbers, a key part of an immigration agenda that he promoted heavily during the 2024 campaign. He has deployed active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, terminated temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants and taken steps to pause the nation’s amnesty process.
During his CPAC address, Trump said his administration has ushered in the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
The claim comes the day after Trump removed Caleb Vitello as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as Trump and border czar Tom Homan have openly expressed anger about the number of people being deported, arguing the figures should be higher to align with Trump’s campaign promises.
“It’s driving him nuts,” a person familiar with Trump’s thinking told NBC News earlier this month. “They’re not deporting more people.”
