The Scene
The 50th annual Conservative Political Action Conference kicks off this morning, and it will end Saturday with a speech from Donald Trump and a South Carolina primary watch party. But its focus will be global, and its motto: “Where globalism goes to die.”
Trump will share the CPAC stage with an international array of conservative populists, including Argentina President Javier Milei, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, and former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss. Bukele’s crackdown on crime and Milei’s call for the West to reject a “socialist agenda which will only bring misery” have thrilled American conservatives — as have the pro-family, anti-LGBT reforms of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a 2022 CPAC guest.
“Liz Truss reached out to us and said she was going to be in America and she’d always wanted to go to CPAC,” Matt Schlap, CPAC’s chairman, told Semafor. “We thought that was great synergy. And we’ve obviously worked very closely with the Bolsonaro family, and have had multiple CPACs in Brazil,” he added, referring to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Pro-Trump American lawmakers will appear throughout the conference, too, including several who the former president has mentioned as potential vice presidential nominees — Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and ex-Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
“I kind of view it as our version of ‘The Apprentice,’” Schlapp told Semafor. Nikki Haley won’t make an appearance — Schlapp called her continued presidential bid “silly” — and some media outlets will be denied credentials, including reporters from the Washington Post and HuffPost.
“If media outlets spend almost 100% of their time going prominent conservatives, constantly trying to feed anti-Trump rhetoric, then they’re not journalists,” Schlapp explained. If the journalists who failed his test wanted to attend, they could buy tickets, which started at $295.
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David’s view
Schlapp, a former George W. Bush strategist, has led CPAC for nearly a decade, shaping its transition from a broad showcase for Republicans and conservative activists into a MAGA-centric event.
Trump has spoken there for every year of Schlapp’s tenure; congressional leaders who sometimes cross him, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, find somewhere else to be.
That’s fed criticism of the conference, which got louder when Schlapp was sued by a Republican campaign staffer who accused him of sexual misconduct in 2022. Last year, multiple CPAC board members hit the exits; Grover Norquist told the Washington Post on the way out that the conference “stopped being a useful part of the movement long ago.”
Schlapp sees that critique as so much sour grapes; the lawsuit, he said, hadn’t driven away potential CPAC speakers, and Trump was standing with him. “He demonstrates a lot of leadership traits that I wish other politicians had,” Schlapp explained. “He doesn’t cut and run, and we’re not going to do that to him either.”
Notable
In the New York Times, Michael C. Bender looks ahead at the CPAC vice presidential sweepstakes.