It came when Mr. Christie stopped by a breakfast of conservative columnists at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington.
At a breakfast for conservative journalists in the offices of Americans for Tax Reform this May, he spoke resentfully of being required to treat penurious immigrants in emergency rooms — "patients who were more likely to sue you than anybody else," having children "who became automatic citizens the next day".
But for glum and frustrated conservative voters on Thursday around breakfast tables in eastern Tennessee, in the shadow of a military base in Colorado Springs and on the streets of suburban Philadelphia, it was as much a surrender to reality as to Democratic demands.
Hand-wringing was evident throughout the breakfast, where young conservatives alternately boasted of their progress and bemoaned their challenges.
Earlier in the month, Hagel had already tried them out at a breakfast talk to a conservative group in Orange County, Calif.
Mr. Gingrey made other news at the breakfast, indicating that even ardent conservatives might be rethinking their opposition to banning high-capacity semiautomatic gun magazines in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre.
The proposal was made at a breakfast sponsored by the church's conservative "Good News" caucus.
The amount spent by the Conservative-run local authority on temporary bed and breakfast accommodation is £120,000 so far this financial year, compared to £10,419 in 2012-13 and £34,000 in 2013-14.
The surgeon became popular in conservative circles when, instead of praying at a prayer breakfast in Washington, he rudely blasted President Obama in front of President Obama.
They were members of a conservative college student group, and the subject of their breakfast meeting was how to improve their campus recruitment activities.
A conservative superstar, he gained political prominence for using a prayer breakfast speech to attack Obama – with the president sitting just a few feet away.
