Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the blockbuster CPAC convention beginning Wednesday, is pushing back on media criticism of him, calling the attacks an example of the Left’s efforts to silence conservatives.
“Fake journalists,” Schlapp said in a recent interview, are “pushing this leftist agenda and lying, and I’m a victim of that, right? This media will take any charge and run with it if they can destroy a Republican or a Trump supporter or conservative. That’s what we have in this country.”
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Schlapp, who is facing an anonymous claim that he groped a male campaign worker and criticism of his management style, said the attacks are an example of the type of efforts of the Left to bring woke politics into the mainstream.
“That has to stop. People like myself, when we get in these situations, we have to find a way not to back down. And I think that’s what the people of CPAC are all facing in their own lives,” he said of conservative activists who sometimes face criticism back home or in their jobs.
“Democracy Dies in the Darkness” says the outlet that serves as the journalist wing of the Democratic Party and seeks to create a one-party rule in Washington DC.
That rag of a paper isn’t fit to line the bottom of a bird cage, much less be taken seriously as “news”
— CPAC (@CPAC) February 28, 2023
“You know, if you’re working for a publicly traded company, and you’re being told you have to support crazy political institutions, not even institutions but movements, or you’re going to be considered a hater or a racist or something. It’s created a very perverse situation,” he said.
As the four-day Conservative Political Action Conference opens this afternoon at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center just outside of Washington, liberal media outlets have feasted on controversies surrounding Schlapp. He denied the groping charges, and allies have defended his management of CPAC.
The media have also played up the lack of some marquee Republicans at the convention this week and its focus on former President Donald Trump, who is speaking.
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Schlapp noted Trump still dominates the party and added that other 2024 candidates are speaking, brushing aside the reports.
He said that the convention would highlight recent clashes over social policy that have been dragged into woke politics, with the media joining the Left to silence conservatives, such as in the debate over critical race theory by calling the opposition racists and other slurs.
“Our goal at CPAC has been to highlight these things instead of hiding them because they’re uncomfortable, oh my gosh, they are uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable when you get called these things. But the fact is, what are your actions, and where’s your heart? And the vast majority of Americans are really good people, and they have the right intent. And we just have to be a little more decent to each other and allow them to have their different views,” said Schlapp.
