Image source, Getty Images

Donald Trump took the stage to raucous cheers at the Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington DC on Saturday, boasting the sweeping actions of his administration's one month and two days back in the White House.

Trump told the conference - whose virtual and in-person attendees also included conservative big wigs from international politics such as Javier Milei and Giorgia Meloni - about his efforts to drastically shrink the federal government, crack down on migration, impose tariffs and negotiate a peace deal over the war in Ukraine.

Argentine President Milei addressed the conference on Saturday morning, comparing Trump's government cuts to his own, as Italian PM Meloni made a virtual appearance praising Trump and his Vice-President JD Vance.

Trump's keynote address marks the end of the three-day gathering. We are ending our live coverage of the event, but you can catch up on more news from the meeting below:

• Musk wields his Doge chainsaw - but is a backlash brewing?
• Elon Musk waves 'bureaucracy chainsaw' gifted by Argentina
• French far-right leader cancels speech, accusing Bannon of 'Nazi' gesture

Image source, Getty Images

Among the foreign leaders who spoke at the multi-day conservative convention was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who took to the stage virtually on Saturday, ahead of Donald Trump's speech.

She echoed many American conservative sentiments in her remarks.

"Our adversaries hope that President Trump will move away from us, but knowing him as a strong and effective leader I bet that those who hope for divisions will be proven wrong," Meloni said.

She also came to the defence of US Vice-President JD Vance, who was criticised by some for remarks he made last week arguing that Europe's biggest threat comes "from within".

Meloni blasted "elites" who were upset with Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference.

She claimed "American liberal leftism" was being replicated in Europe and said Vance was right to warn of a great threat to Europe in his Munich remarks.

"Vice President Vance was discussing something deeper: identity, democracy, freedom of speech," she said.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from the Conservative Political Action Conference

French far-right leader Jordan Bardella cancelled a planned speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, after Donald Trump's former top adviser made a hand gesture on stage that Bardella and others likened to a Nazi salute.

Steve Bannon yelled "fight, fight, fight" before extending his right arm, fingers pointed and palm down, during his CPAC speech on Thursday evening.

Bardella, who leads France's National Rally party, was already in Washington and had been scheduled to speak at the event on Friday. He said in a statement that he was cancelling his appearance over what he called a "gesture referring to Nazi ideology".

Bannon denied the Nazi comparison and called the gesture a "wave", saying it was the "exact same wave" he did on stage at a speech seven years ago in France to Bardella's party.

"If he cancelled [the speech] over what the mainstream media said about the speech, he didn't listen to the speech. If that's true, he's unworthy to lead France. He's a boy, not a man," Bannon told the French news magazine Le Point.

• Read more: French far-right leader cancels speech, accusing Bannon of 'Nazi' gesture

During his lengthy CPAC remarks, Trump made no mention of his late-night Friday firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown.

Brown, the highest-ranking officer in the country, is the latest military official Trump has sacked since returning to the White House.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously said that Gen Brown should be fired because of his "woke" focus on diversity, equity and inclusion programmes in the military.

While Trump spoke about his cuts to the federal workforce during his speech, he did not directly mention Brown.

Merlyn Thomas
North America correspondent, reporting from CPAC

President Trump was at his most comfortable in front of a crowd of his supporters - where it felt more like he was performing, cracking jokes and swearing at one point.

He ducked in and out of a wide-range of topics, talking about cracking down on the border, the blizzard of executive actions and his efforts to reshape the federal government.

The crowd responded at every twist and turn of his address, booing when he called out his adversaries and cheering and standing up to pump their fists in the air at the sound of Elon Musk's name

CPAC asked attendees of the annual conference who they thought should lead the party in 2028, after Trump completes his second term in office: their answer, Vice-President JD Vance.

Some 61% of attendees said Vance should be the 2028 Republican nominee.

Trump adviser and conservative firebrand Steve Bannon earned 12% support, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earned 3% support, Secretary of State Marco Rubio earned 3% and UN ambassador nominee Elise Stefanik earned 3% support.

Merlyn Thomas
North America correspondent, reporting from CPAC

Before Donald Trump's speech this afternoon, I spent some time walking around the conference here in suburban Washington.

Republican faithful are out in force for a lineup of conservative speakers.

One of the newest additions to Trump's fan base here is CPAC attending Erik's 11-month old cat, Jinkie.

Image source, BBC / Merlyn Thomas

Trump has just finished speaking at CPAC.

Stick with us and we'll bring you more updates and analysis from the conference.

Image source, Getty Images

One of the biggest moments of applause during Trump's nearly hour-and-a-half speech to CPAC comes as he mentions doing away with DEI policies.

"I notified every DEI officer that their job has been deleted," Trump says of government staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

He says he also hopes to end such practices in the private sector.

He also touts the policies he has instituted to restrict access to medical care for transgender Americans to stop transgender servicemembers from working in the military.

DEI programmes aim to promote participation in workplaces by people from a range of backgrounds.

Their backers say they address historical and ongoing underrepresentation and discrimination against certain groups including racial minorities, but critics say such programmes can themselves be discriminatory.

Trump returns to talking about what he says is one of his favourite topics: tariffs.

"The word tariff is my favourite word in the dictionary," he tells the crowd to applause.

Trump tells the crowd he was criticised for saying tariff is his favourite word, now he says it's his fourth-favourite word after words like wife and America.

"We were the richest relatively - think of this - from 1870 to 1913," he tells the crowd. "That was our richest, because we collected tariffs.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on US trading partners such as Canada and Mexico, as well as saying the US will impose reciprocal tariffs on countries who charge tariffs on US imports.

You can read more about that here: What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?

Trump now moves on to talking about another major topic of the week: Russia's war in Ukraine.

We're dealing with President Zelensky and we're dealing with President Putin, Trump tells the crowd.

He hits out at "stupid and incompetent" President Joe Biden for involving the US so heavily in Ukraine's defence against Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion.

Europe should contribute more money to aid Ukraine than the US, Trump says.

We should get back the money we gave them he says. "It's just not fair."

He says "I think we're close to a deal" to end the war, which he calls a "horrible situation".

"It would have never happened" if I were president, he says.

"We're working on that," he says. "I don’t like talking about it because we're in the middle of negotiations."

US officials met Russian officials - without Ukrainians - in Saudi Arabia in recent days to begin peace talks. The meetings came as Zelensky and Trump traded barbs, with Trump calling Zelensky a "dictator".

You can read more about the history of Trump and Zelensky's relationship here.

Trump tells the CPAC crowd that government bureaucrats who don't report to work in person are "fired".

He says that if he didn't have to work, he'd be focused on improving his golf game.

One of the reasons people are leaving the federal government is because they don't want to work in person, Trump claims.

Thousands of government employees at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration, as well as other agencies, have been fired in recent weeks.

Musk - who is running Trump's efforts to cut government staffing - posted on social media as Trump was speaking saying all federal employees will receive an email "requesting to understand what they got done last week".

"Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," Musk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

You can read more about what Trump did in this week, including the firings, here.

Image source, Get

Trump has turned now to talking about his key adviser Elon Musk.

The president says the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO is a "great character", and says Musk is cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" with his Doge group, which has spearheaded the effort to cut down the federal workforce.

Trump says people ask what Musk's official government position is, and tells people he says "He's a patriot".

Image source, Getty Images

Trump's talking about migrants crossing the southern border.

The president seems to growl as he says "I couldn't stand it" - referencing the crossing of undocumented migrants into the United States.

He says this issue was why he "had" to run for president again.

Trump then pivots to another topic that has been a major focus of the first month of his second term, saying the US will soon have "so much money coming in from tariffs".

He is also met with cheers when he mentions pulling the US out of the Paris climate accords and cancelling Biden-era electric car incentives.

Trump is now talking about his one-time presidential opponent, former Vice-President Kamala Harris.

He claims "nobody ever knows her last name" and as he mispronounces Harris's first name.

"I'm the only one who ever had to beat two people," Trump says of Joe Biden dropping out as Democratic nominee and Harris stepping up, as the crowd jeers.

A few minutes later, he says his predecessor Biden was the "worst" president in US history.

So far, Trump is sticking to many of his oft-trod topics as his speech garners applause and cheers in the CPAC audience

The president touts his election win, blasts transgender girls and women playing in girls and women's sports and praises his newly confirmed cabinet picks.

Looking ahead, Trump says he's going to build a "lasting" political majority and predicts the Republicans will do well in the midterms.

"The people have given us a resounding mandate" in Washington, and we're going to use it, Trump says.

He says his administration has achieved more in four weeks than most administration accomplish in four years: "We've made a lot of progress."

Image source, Getty Images

Trump starts by repeating some his go-to lines hitting out at "radical leftists".

He also welcomes the foreign leaders attending CPAC, which include Argentinine President Javier Milei, Poland's President Andrzej Duda and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Trump has taken the stage and will be speaking shortly.

Stick with us and we'll bring you the latest.

Donald Trump is expected to take the stage at CPAC shortly. We'll bring you all the top lines from his speech - which you'll be able to watch live at the top of this page, so stick with us.

Merlyn Thomas
North America correspondent

The crowd here were revved up and excited by the speech from the Trump administration's so-called border tsar Tom Homan, which was full of profanities and touched on steaming ahead with the president's immigration agenda.

He ended the address with chants of USA coming from the crowd, waving their arms in the air.