American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp boasted on Wednesday that he has implemented a “new rule” banning liberal media outlets from covering this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
It’s a peculiar strategy seeing as the annual right-wing confab has been relegated to obscurity and largely shunned by establishment conservatives wary of its over-the-top MAGA sycophancy; and by Fox News, who has seemingly cut ties with the event over Schlapp’s alleged sexual misconduct.
While hosting Schlapp on his Wednesday morning podcast, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon touted his status among a cadre of far-right media personalities and lawmakers slated to speak at CPAC this week, and dismissed criticism that the event has become increasingly irrelevant. Bannon cheered on Schlapp’s ban on most media he deems to be “left-wing.”
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“People’s heads are blowing up. Maybe [CPAC is] not just where globalism goes to die, but maybe, journalists who are actually information warfare participants…on the left, maybe their access goes to die also,” the War Room host declared, referencing CPAC 2024’s theme.
Telling Bannon that “we’ve got to get smarter,” Schlapp complained about the “people that run around and say they’re journalists.” According to the CPAC organizer, many reporters will target conservatives and “make trumped-up charges on them from anonymous sources.” And just for good measure, Schlapp said he wasn’t just referencing stories about former President Donald Trump.
“So this tactic they’re using against Trump is intergalactic, but they’re using similar tactics against all of us,” he declared. “So CPAC has a new rule. If you’re a propagandist, you can buy a ticket, like everyone else, but you’re not in the media, and we’re not going to credential you by saying you’re in the media.”
Schlapp further argued that “corporate media entities” like MSNBC are “100 percent anti-Trump, anti-American, anti-conservative every moment of every day,” reiterating that reporters from these outlets will not be credentialed at CPAC.
“They never have any kind of honest treatment of anything. And they run anybody off from the station who used to be at least somewhat honest some of the time, like Chris Matthews and such,” he growled. “So, you know, let’s get real, let’s not credential them anymore and we’re not going to do it.”
Schlapp also crowed about denying a HuffPost reporter credentials to CPAC, even though the journalist had covered the event for more than a decade.
Tweeting out a screenshot of a text the reporter sent to his wife Mercedes, who also works at CPAC, Schlapp wrote: “Just love the exploding heads from leftist propagandists who think they deserve to be treated as journalists. @mercedesschlapp got this text last night from the HuffPost. @CPAC will deny press credentials to these scammers. Enough is enough.”
Schlapp first flirted with the idea of banning select media outlets during last year’s event. At the time, the ACU boss was dealing with the fallout of accusations that he groped a Republican staffer, resulting in a $9 million sexual-misconduct lawsuit. The Daily Beast, which was the first to report on the allegations, and other outlets that covered the scandal did not initially receive credentials. While some reporters eventually got last-minute emails confirming their credentials, The Daily Beast, which the Schlapp family has described as “Satan’s publication,” did not.
Meanwhile, CPAC 2023 also saw a number of prominent Republicans skip the event amid the controversy surrounding Schlapp, prompting concerns about his leadership among his own staff.
And Schlapp and his wife, who is also named in the lawsuit, have essentially become personae non grata on Fox News for over a year now. Aside from banning the Schlapps from its airwaves, Fox News has downplayed CPAC since the allegations came to light. (Two additional sexual assault claims against Schlapp surfaced late last year.) Once a “Featured Sponsor” that underwrote the confab to the tune of $250,000 in 2021, the network not only pulled its sponsorship last year but also didn’t carry the multi-day event on its digital streaming service Fox Nation as it had in years past.
CPAC 2024 appears to be heading down the same road. While Fox News will surely carry Trump’s Saturday keynote addresss, Fox Nation isn’t live-streaming the conference. Additionally, the network is not listed as a CPAC sponsor, leaving that space to smaller MAGA media rivals like Newsmax, Real America’s Voice, and The Epoch Times. The only speakers listed with Fox News ties are host Mark Levin and contributors Katie Pavlich and Sara Carter, all of whom have separate media careers outside the cable network.
Much like last year, the vast majority of confirmed speakers are Trump loyalists and far-right media personalities. The only GOP presidential candidate scheduled to appear outside of Trump is “anti-woke” biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and only two senators are currently slated to speak—J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). A few House Republicans are also scattered throughout the schedule, such as Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH).
For the most part, the rest of the program is filled out with such luminaries as election-denying pillow salesman Mike Lindell, Pizzagate conspiracist Jack Posobiec, disgraced former Fox News host Ed Henry, and conservative journalist John Solomon—the architect of Trump’s Ukraine-Biden conspiracy.
