Oxon Hill (United States), March 3. The dismissal of a white supremacist for being anti-Semitic and the accusations of sexual abuse against one of its organizers come to tarnish the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the largest annual convention of the American right, which counts important absentees.
This year’s CPAC, which is back in Washington after a trip that took it to Florida and Texas, is less crowded than in previous editions, as EFE has been able to verify, where its main hall barely made it. to fill up in many of its sessions. .
And this despite the fact that this conference, which is being held at the National Harbor Convention Center, on the outskirts of the capital, has attracted lawmakers and Republican figures, mostly linked to former President Donald Trump (2017-2021).
Speakers include lawmakers Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz; the children of former President Donald Trump Jr and Lara Trump; Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley; strategist Steve Bannon or former Secretary of State and eventual presidential candidate Mike Pompeo.
For main courses on Saturday, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Trump himself will shut down CPAC.
Notable absences, however, are Republican congressional leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, and two other likely presidential candidates, former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Sessions at CPAC are taking place these days with what Americans call “an elephant in the room” that no one dares to talk about: the charges against conference chairman Matt Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp.
Two days before the start of the conference, the couple were sued by an anonymous person in a court in Alexandria, a suburb of Washington, for alleged sexual assault and defamation.
The complaint is based on events that allegedly occurred in October 2022, when Matt Schlapp allegedly groped and pitched a worker to former Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker.
According to The Washington Post, Schlapp, leader of the American Conservative Union group, organizer of CPAC, is blamed internally for having created a “toxic” environment.
Throughout the conference, since Wednesday, Matt and Mercedes Schlapp have intervened in various presentations without mentioning this scandal.
Added to this is another controversy starring Matt Schlapp for expelling white supremacist Nick Fuentes from CPAC for making anti-Semitic remarks.
In a statement posted to his Twitter account, Schlapp explained that “hateful racist rhetoric and actions are inconsistent with CPAC’s mission.”
The organizer said he was concerned about “the rise of anti-Semitic (Jewish hatred) rhetoric” in the United States and around the world “whether in the halls of power, in intellectual circles or raving online as than fanatics as sources”.
In November, Fuentes made headlines in the United States after having dinner with Trump and rapper Kanye West, who has also made anti-Semitic comments, at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago mansion during a rally. criticized by sectors of the Republican Party. .
Matt Schlapp is at the center of the conservative apparatus in Washington. In the past, he served as political director in the White House of George W. Bush (2001-2009) and has been the leader of the American Conservative Union since 2014.
Schlapp rose to prominence under the Trump administration, when he was a regular at the conservative Fox News, while his wife Mercedes Schlapp became the former president’s White House strategic communications director and now works on his campaign. EFE
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