Who’s Killing CPAC? Fox News and Others AWOL From Once-Powerful Event Now Plagued By Scandal and Extremism

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

This week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) highlighted a widening chasm within the American right as major conservative media organizations either had smaller footprints at the event — or skipped it entirely.

CPAC, which once played host to a wide cross-section of GOP leaders, has over the years been plagued by bad headlines. Each year it plays host to an increasingly smaller tent, one that now almost exclusively caters to pro-Trump loyalists. That trend was on stark display when looking at which outlets had major set-ups at the event: Newsmax, Real America’s Voice, The Epoch Times, and Steve Bannon’s War Room primarily populated broadcast row at the convention hall outside of Washington, DC.

Mediaite reached out to some major conservative media outlets and asked about their presence at CPAC. A spokesperson for the Daily Wire, one of the biggest conservative media companies in the country, noted, “We’ve never had a particularly large presence, but our talent speak there almost every year.” They pointed out Michael Knowles spoke on Thursday.

But the Daily Wire’s top draws, like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, who have spoken at the event in the past, were absent this year.

The conference, which used to draw top elected Republicans and every GOP presidential contender, is only attended by one sitting governor and a handful of members of Congress this year. Vivek Ramaswamy is the only 2024 candidate present other than Donald Trump – who is set to address the conference on Saturday.

The most conspicuous absence at CPAC, however, is that of Fox News, the most-watched cable news channel in the country, which yet again had no major presence at the event this year. Its streamer, Fox Nation, was also absent – last having a major presence in 2022.

Fox News’s high-profile opinion hosts were nowhere to be found on the list of speakers. Some former Fox employees like Ed Henry, Monica Crowley, and Megyn Kelly are set to speak. Fox contributor and regular guest host Katie Pavlich spoke at the event, but was noticeably identified as an editor for Townhall.com. Fox host Mark Levin was also slated to speak and was identified by his radio program, The Mark Levin Show.

As recently as 2022, prime time Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity addressed CPAC and were guaranteed draws to fill seats at the event. Thursday’s CPAC drew scrutiny for lack of star power and many open seats.

The falling out between Fox News and CPAC is years in the making and fueled by a few factors. CPAC speakers frequently tear into Fox for insufficient loyalty to Trump, and Fox has distanced itself from CPAC chief Matt Schlapp since he was accused of sexual misconduct and sexual assault. Schlapp is currently facing a $9 million lawsuit from a former male staffer over alleged sexual misconduct.

In the wake of the accusations, Schlapp was dropped as a regular guest on Fox. He claimed in September of 2023 that this had more to do with his politics than the ongoing scandal surrounding him. “I was on Fox practically every day for years and years and years,” Schlapp told Newsmax.

“And then something happened in the country; the BLM riots happened, the virus happened, and then this crazy presidential election with all this voter fraud happened, and Fox seemed to want to be at war with its viewers. And people who have opinions and voices like me, became a less hospitable place,” he claimed, openly attacking Fox on the much smaller rival network.

Bannon used his speech in 2023 to slam Fox News and Rupert Murdoch. “They don’t respect you, read the depositions. They have a fear, a loathing and a contempt for you,” Bannon told the CPAC audience, referring to the Dominion lawsuit discovery that was made public that year.

CPAC’s narrowing reach is also a matter of shifting politics. Levin used his time in 2022 to slam rising populism in the conservative movement, telling the audience, that it’s called the “conservative political action committee, not populist political action committee, not nationalist political action committee.”

CPAC’s overwhelming theme in 2024 was something very different from past years as Steve Bannon opened the event with a full-throttled endorsement of populism, telling the audience that “I think the populist movement, the nationalist movement, is going to be a solution” to the major crises of the day, which he discussed in detail. The organization has also held events overseas, boosting far-right authoritarians like Viktor Orban in Hungary. Bannon’s opening event made national headlines when conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec vowed to “overthrow” American democracy and finish the job started on January 6th, comments that embodied the new CPAC — one increasingly comfortable on the fringes.

Isaac Schorr contributed to this report.

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