Matt Schlapp Kicks Off CPAC With Excoriating Rant Against ‘Left-Wing’ Journalists: ‘We Don’t Want You Here’
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the union that hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference, took a hard stance against what he called “left-wing journalists” at the first day of the conference.
CPAC kicked off its 50th year Thursday in Washington, D.C., with Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, taking the stage to lay out the parameters of this year’s conference, including the motto “Where globalism goes to die.”
Schlapp announced:
We did two things at this CPAC that are special and unique. The first thing is, if you call yourself a journalist, but you spend all your time trying to destroy America and trying to destroy Americans who love America, and trying to destroy conservatives, and patriots, and people from MAGA, and, yes, J6. If that’s what you do, we don’t want you here. You can buy a ticket and just act like any other normal citizen.
CPAC denied credentials this year to reporters from The Washington Post, HuffPost, MSNBC, and other outlets which Schlapp deemed too liberal.
Semafor reported, “If the journalists who failed his test wanted to attend, they could buy tickets, which started at $295.”
This isn’t the first time Schlapp has banned members of the media from covering CPAC. During the conference held in autocrat Viktor Orbán’s Hungary in 2023, Schlapp denied entry to all U.S. journalists. Vice first reported that those outlets included Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and The Associated Press. CPAC is planning a second visit to Hungary in April 2024.
In Washington, CPAC runs through Saturday, when former President Donald Trump is scheduled to take the stage. Earlier in his speech, Schlapp committed his full support to Trump, saying:
There is a unique American who is being persecuted, who is being tortured, who is the victim of the Democratic policies based on the world’s worst dictators. Whether it be [Vladimir] Putin, or whether it be Xi [Jinping]. The Democratic Party and Joe Biden doing everything they can to collude with the ‘Deep State,’ to use lawfare to put Donald Trump in prison. Can we send a loud CPAC message to send a message to Donald J. Trump and his family that we stand four-square with him?
At that, the crowd stood and cheered.
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.