News & Updates

Heath Mayo, Founder of Principles First, spoke with The Washington Post on August 3: Heath Mayo, an attorney and founder of an anti-Trump nonprofit group called Principles First, said Republicans are contradicting themselves by accusing Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department while at the same time pledging to crush the…

Heath Mayo, founder of Principles First, was featured in The Bulwark’s Not My Party: As Heath Mayo, a founder of Principles First, a traditional conservative activist group, put it, “The loudest applause lines . . . that we should give Russia the Donbas, that we should defund the FBI, that…

The Political Theater Podcast recorded an episode with former Rep. Barbara Comstock focused on the 2023 Summit: Trump-first Republicans have CPAC. Never Trumpers have Principles First. And on one magical weekend, the twain did meet, or at least met at roughly the same time. Roll Call political writers Mary…

The following is a transcript of Heath Mayo’s opening remarks at the 2023 Principles First Summit. It is an incredible feeling to stand here and see all of you – who have come from near and far at personal expense and sacrifice to be in this room today. In that…

POLITICO’s Ally Mutnick covered our annual 2023 summit: Over the course of some 20 panels and speeches, the tone bounced from upbeat to nostalgic to despondent. One group debated whether Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be a worse nominee (no consensus was reached). At times, the proceedings had…

Charlie Sykes recorded a live version of The Bulwark Podcast on stage at the 2023 Summit: John Bolton thought he could create a coherent foreign policy for Trump, but now sees he was naive. Plus, Charlie Sykes asks Bolton about his early defense of Trump’s relations with Putin —…

Ally Mutnick published a story in Politico around of this year’s Summit: Donald Trump used his primetime stage at the CPAC conference this Saturday to taunt the Bush Republicans, globalists and neocons. A dozen miles away, at a lower-profile gathering in downtown D.C. the remnants of that bygone GOP…

Mary Ellen McIntire and Daniela Altimari of Roll Call covered the 2023 Principles First Summit: The conference heard from former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Sunday morning, but while his videotaped message talked about moving beyond “angry, divisive politics,” it didn’t include the news that broke that morning that he would…

Mychael Schnell published a story in The Hill ahead of the 2022 Summit: Republican figures opposed to former President Trump will gather in Washington, D.C., this weekend for an event that has been subbed “counterprogramming” of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which is also set to take place…