‘Anti-CPAC’ summit planned with prominent GOP Trump critics

A summit aimed at rivaling the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and featuring prominent Republican critics of former President Trump will take place in Washington later this month.

The group Principles First is set to host a summit Feb. 23-25 at the Conrad hotel “focused on advancing a more principled center-right politics in the United States” and “rebuilding principled leadership that serves our country—not partisanship or personality,” according to the organization’s website.  

Speakers for the event, the dates of which overlap with CPAC, include former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and conservative lawyer George Conway.

The event was described by organizers as an “anti-CPAC summit.”

CPAC will be taking place in National Harbor, Md., just outside D.C., around the same time and will include former President Trump and many of his allies, like House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Sens. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), among others.  

The split screen between the two events shows an increasingly diverging GOP between Trump and anti-Trump factions of the party as the former president inches closer toward the Republican presidential nomination.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the last remaining Republican looking to take on Trump in the GOP primary, has sought to urge voters to steer away from Trump, saying he would only offer chaos. But the primaries have shown Trump to be a resilient candidate, with the former president racking up several early-state wins despite multiple indictments.