appearances and two. now live to the senate floor. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., february 23, 2017. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable rand paul, a senator from the commonwealth of kentucky, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: orrin g. hatch, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until noon on stands adjourned until noon on

>> now live to the national harbor where the conservative political action conference is about to get underway today. first remarks from white house counselor kellyanne conway. live coverage on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the pledge of allegiance and our national aunt and then please remain standing for the indication.

>> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. these not ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

♪ >> let us bow our heads. your heavenly father, we take this first moment of the day to give thanks to you, that you are a creator, date you are with us and that you have given us such a wonderful country to live in. we thank you for the liberty and freedom that we all are able to live under and we pray you will continue to bless this country. we are so ask for safety for all the participants in cpac, the people traveling here still, the people here today. we ask that we will always understand the role that you

play in this country and in our lives and we ask a special question on the military that always is on the line for our country. finally, dear lord, we ask a special blessing to all the staff and the speakers that will be bringing their words and hard work to us so that we may gather together and learn about our rights, liberties and the direction of our country. most of all, heavenly father, we give thanks for your daily presence in our lives. in your name, we pray amen. ♪

>> let me tell you, as dire as things are, people are waking up all over this country. >> make america great again. we can do it. thank you. thank you. ♪ ♪

♪ >> week, the present-day americans are not given to looking backwards. in this blessed land, there is always better. >> ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to cpac 2017. please welcome your director, karon walters and her assistant, pilot. and millie hallo, vice chairman of the american conservative union federation. and the executive director of the american conservative union, dan schneider.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] ♪ >> where's my mom? >> welcome, cpac 2017. you are all here. this is very good crack this. you know we have special people coming live tomorrow and that means going through and waking up in all of that. are we ready to do that? in the staff here, last night you got four hours of sleep. >> it's been a while. >> today you get to meet violet. violet was born in the middle of our cleveland offense. some of you may have been to our cleveland event at the convention as mike pence was

given his very first speech after donald trump announced he would be the vice presidential nominee. car and was in the delivery room giving birth to violet. clark tax >> so now i think it's a great time to thank our sponsors. >> we do have great sponsors. these are the sponsors who make this possible and sponsors to stand for the american values the conservative union stands for. >> what happened to pursuit of happiness? >> that's a philosophical disk russian. but we will get into that. there's my mom. >> how are you? >> well, i have to start up with the first sponsor because it's near and dear to my heart. the national rifle association. >> how many of you are members?

>> how many of you are lifetime members for the national rifle association? what's that? >> it is a truism about the second amendment we cannot have any of the other rights in our current situation. [applause] >> i am happy to announce that one of our major partners this year is liberty health care. >> i thought obamacare is going to provide all of our health care from now on. >> i need to talk to you. we need to talk about this. >> liberty health care is an excellent organization, company that is never needed obamacare to figure out how to pull risks. do any government to tell us how to buy insurance policies? you need government to cover violence? >> absolutely not.

>> i would like to thank breitbart. >> with had a good relationship for a number of years. the now former head of right guard is sitting in the white house because donald trump is hillary clinton. >> i would like to thank heritage foundation, the mother of all conservative think tanks, happy to have been as full partner with us this year. >> the heritage foundation is a very special place. for a long time, when president reagan was president of the united states, it was always referred to as president reagan's think tank. the heritage foundation is near and dear to our hearts. we work closely with senator jim dement and his team. we've team. we've got excellent people at the heritage foundation. >> in a number of speakers throughout this conference are attached to heritage them are very honored to have air

thoughts and their enlightenment for this organization. who else do we have? >> another thing that is near and dear to my heart. i mentioned we stand for life, liberty and property. property comes in three forms. physical property, personal property and intellectual property. we cannot give up on any of those rights. if you cannot on what you create, if you can't own your home, your nothing but a serif. we have to stand for property, have to stand for all these important values. >> this is definitely dan's passion. we all in the office of his lines memorized and we often hand him a tissue and he starts talking about it. >> i do want to thank the staff. her executive order -- rather in the executive order.

[inaudible] >> staff at each see you works incredible hours getting ready for this. so if you seek care in her other people on her team or other employees of the american conservative union, if we seem cranky, if we seem tired, it is because we are cranky and tired. we are so thrilled that you are here and that we get to celebrate a president who's not named hillary clinton. [cheers and applause] we have an opportunity to reclaim the american dream. >> before they get off the stage, where they are going to be announcements during the day so that we can be attentive and responsive to the secret service? we have an racket at the secret service for the past couple days. but they let you in on a secret.

the guys at the earpieces and they're actually pretty nice and they are really trying to make it as easy as possible given the security that will be attached to the president and the vice president. stay tuned and the sin because we will be saying when you have to line up, when you have to go through the magnetometers. all i can say to you all is we have more people that want to get in then we have space for. we will have overflow room. hang on. it's going to be great. >> tonight the vice president speaks right here. if you want to make sure that you get in and get a good seat,, but the plan. >> you definitely want to attend our breakout session. those will get a little early access pass and that means you

get to get in the bagram before everybody else steps in line. i highly recommend attending the breakout sessions. you'll get the ticket and learned a lot about important information. >> thank you all for coming. >> violet, wave to everybody. >> thank you. >> live coverage of the cpac conference near washington d.c. all they cover should a paper marks from white house counselor kellyanne conway. we will also switch over to c-span a little bit later today for coverage with education secretary. also reince priebus and steve bannon this afternoon. back life to cpac. [cheers and applause]