TEXAS, USA — Former U.S. President Donald Trump and an all-star cast of conservative figures and lawmakers including Texas officials will converge in Dallas this week for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Everyone who is anyone in today's Republican Party will be there. This is the second year in a row CPAC is returning to Dallas. The national event will take place from August 4-7 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel.
President Trump is the keynote speaker with several of Texas’ top elected officials scheduled to speak. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will all take the stage.
Among the national and international, conservative figures who are part of the speaker line-up is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He is currently under fire over statements he made last week criticizing migrants and said Europeans do not want to mix with people from other races.
North Texas U.S. Representative Beth Van Duyne will also address the crowd. Her speech will focus on policies important to people right now.
“I’m going to be sharing things about what's happening with our energy production in the United States, and what we could do - policies that we could put in place that would actually help our small businesses, will help our large businesses, help our economy,” Representative Van Duyne said on Inside Texas Politics.
Also, this week, CPAC will conduct a Republican presidential nomination straw poll. Former President Trump’s name will sit atop the ballot joined by 20 other Republicans considered potential White House candidates in the 2024 election. Trump won a straw poll in February at a CPAC gathering in Orlando, Florida.
There’s talk that Trump might announce his plans for 2024 before the November midterms.
Van Taylor addresses that speculation by saying, “You're going to have to ask Donald Trump what Donald Trump is going to do, because I can guarantee you right now nobody else is going to know - and he's not asking anybody else for permission.”
Van Duyne, who sits on the House Committee on Small Business, tells us why she has started a jobs website. After spending the last year-and-a-half talking to businesses within her district, she learned businesses need skilled workers.
Van Duyne says, “They wanted - they had openings available, but they could not find people and that's why last year we did our job fair. This year, not only are they not finding Labor, but they're having a really hard time finding skilled Labor - you know, people with marketable skills that they were looking for. So, after, you know, conversations with them and talking to our ISD members, we thought, you know, you know what we need to be able to do is put them all together and talk about the partnerships; how do you introduce some of these amazing careers that have long-term stability that pays really well?”
Van Duyne shared with us she’s not paying any attention to the public hearings by the House Jan. 6 Committee because she hasn’t received any calls from her constituents. It’s not something that concerns them. They’re concerned with inflation, gas prices, and having to decide between putting gas in their tanks or food on their plates.