CPAC Does Not Equal MAGA - At Least Not Yet

Peter Navarro's Taking Back Trump's America Podcast

3.2.23

CPAC Does Not Equal MAGA – At Least Not Yet

Hi. I’m Peter Navarro, it’s March 2, 2023, and in the swamp otherwise known as Washington DC, this week politically belongs to CPAC – the Conservative Political Action Conference – which is holding its annual meeting along the banks of the Potomac River.

In fact, this CPAC conference will be the latest battleground in the not so civil war now being waged between the Traditional Wall Street Globalist wing of the Paul Ryan-Mitch McConnell-Fox news-Karl Rove Republican Party – don’t forget Wall Street – versus the Trump MAGA wing.  And that’s the main message of today’s podcast, that no one should ever confuse CPAC with a pure MAGA organization, at least not yet.

While it is true that CPAC is incrementally moving towards MAGA, it has a long way to go and the reasons may be traced to both CPAC’s history and traditional Republican donor class.

Historically, the first CPAC conference was held in 1974; and this organization has a rather schizophrenic structure. While many of its supporters that attend the conference are the average Jills and Joes of conservative America, historically most of the funding for CPAC has come from the elite Globalist conservatives and corporatists who have a profit motive in off shoring American manufacturing jobs and who love open borders so that cheap labor from Mexico and Latin America can flood across our border and drive down the wages and steal the jobs of working class Americans. 

Because of this Globalist donor class which has traditionally funded CPAC, its conferences have focused primarily on the traditional Republican triumvirate of tax cuts, deregulation, and, get this, free markets. Parenthetically, the border issue generally gets hidden in the weeds because it is such a hot button.

And that is the nature of the Civil War now being waged between the traditional and Trump MAGA wings of the Republican Party. While we in Trump and MAGA land likewise embrace tax cuts and deregulation, we part company with Globalist Traditional Republicans on the need for a strong American manufacturing base brought about policies like tariffs and Buy American, Hire American as well as on the secure borders imperative to protect the jobs and wages of black, brown, and blue-collar Americans.

A quick review of the CPAC lineup this year does indeed show a heavy skew towards traditional Republican issues and representatives. While Donald Trump is the headliner – simply because he’s the best draw to bring people to the event – you also have the designated hitters for the Globalists trying to take Trump out in the presidential primary. This roster includes both Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz.

While I am heartened by the appearance of United States Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer to carry the fair trade flag and my former colleague in the White House Stephen Miller, who will fervently make a secure borders case, the roster is otherwise light when it comes to MAGA principles.

My own experience with CPAC is instructive in this regard. During my four years in the White House, I, the top tariff hawk in the White House besides President Trump, was only invited to speak at CPAC once and have not been invited back. Even at that one speech, the CPAC organizers buried me deep in the schedule with a crappy time, and it was clear these organizers feared offending their big Globalist donors with a lightning rod like me talking about fair trade, tariffs, and cutting the cord economically with Communist China. So, put most simply, I trust CPAC on MAGA issues about as far as I can throw it.

The last thing that’s interesting about this year’s CPAC event is the number of Globalist dogs who have chosen not to bark.  For example, the MAGA traitor Mike Pence refused an invitation and Fox News is refusing to do what is done for years, which is to help underwrite the conference. 

Also conspicuously absent is Ron DeSantis, Florida’s fair-haired governor and designated Trump killer by the Globalist elites.  In one of the best bon mots about DeSantis that I have seen so far,  I have to give a tip of my cap to a political strategist who has no love for Donald Trump named Rick Wilson:  Wilson is quoted in an article in the British tabloid the Guardian as follows: 

“[T]he third and final group supporting DeSantis are liberal Republican hedge fund billionaires from New York. The open borders, globalist US Chamber of Commerce are going out of their way to help DeSantis! The irony is DeSantis thinks he can have the most elite support and then trick the MAGA base into thinking he’s a rah-rah like Trump. It just defies imagination.”

I think I might say a little bit of the same about CPAC, which is trying very hard now to appear to be MAGA when it is in truth very far yet from crossing the finish line.  Ergo, I remain wary of the group even if I am somewhat pleased with its movement in the MAGA direction. 

The last point I want to make here is that there is some people who believe that the absence of Pence, DeSantis, and Fox News from this year’s CPAC lollapalooza has much less to do with sending CPAC a message about growing too close the Trump and much more to do with the bizarre and salacious homosexual sex scandal that has engulfed CPAC’s director Matt Schlapp.  The allegation here by an anonymous male Republican campaign staff is that Schlapp made inappropriate sexual advances while intoxicated.

To be clear here, I have not talked to either Matt Schlapp or his wife Mercedes, who I knew at the White House, about this incident. Nor am I friends with either one of them. Quite the contrary. When I was in the White House, I had to push back on Schlapp’s repeated attempts to squash any press messaging related to tariffs or Communist China or the border.  Remember here that prior to coming over Trump team, Schlap repeatedly lit up the Boss on Twitter for everything from President Trump’s support for a secure border to his attacks on John McCain and then Fox News Megan Kelly. Oh, did I mention, Mercedes Schlapp supported another candidate in the 2016 Republican primary. 

But with that said, here is my one take away after taking time to read the multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed against Matt Schlapp and his wife by the aforementioned anonymous Republican staffer.

Nobody, I repeat nobody, should ever have their career and reputation taken away by an anonymous accuser that, at least as I read the lawsuit, appears to offer up little or no compelling evidence of the charges levied against Schlapp. To put this another way, it appears to be nothing more than a “he said, he said” case observed by no other witnesses. 

Yet, at least in the court of public opinion and on the pages of the corporate media, Schlapp and his family have undeniably suffered from this incident; and if I were a betting man, I would bet that Schlapp will have to step down from CPAC shortly after this latest event ends. At least until there is additional evidence offered up, this just doesn’t seem right.  I’m Peter Navarro. Out with these messages from our sponsors. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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