CPAC Announces President Trump to Speak, Hours After Milo Scandal Erupts

‘The Party of Morality & Values’

A day after outrage erupted over CPAC’s announcement that so-called “alt-right” figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos would be a key speaker at the ultra-conservative annual conference, the group has announced that President Donald Trump will also address attendees this weekend.

Nestled between the two announcements was the resurfacing of a video in which Yiannopoulos defends statutory rape of young teenaged boys by older men. 

In short, the President of the United States will be speaking on the same stage as a man who defends sex between teens, possibly as young as 13 or 14, and adult, sometimes older men, with full knowledge of both the White House and the American Conservative Union (ACU), the group that organizes CPAC.

To be clear, it is stunning CPAC has not rescinded its invitation to Yiannopoulos after the video again came to light, and it is stunning the organization is hiding behind a claim of “free speech” and First Amendment rights to support its decision to invite Yiannopoulos, who prefers to be called “MILO.” In years past, CPAC had banned LGBT speakers and refused to allow LGBT groups to hold breakout sessions.

This is not the first time Trump has tied himself to Yiannopoulos. Just a few weeks ago Yiannopoulos, a senior editor at Breitbart, the website formerly headed by Trump’s White House Chief Strategist, attacked the administration of the University of California, Berkeley, after a heated protest broke out over a speech Yiannopoulos was slated to deliver as part of his “Dangerous Faggot” tour of college campuses. While UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich says he “wouldn’t bet against” Yiannopoulos and Breitbart collaborating with the agitators, Trump threatened to pull the major research university’s federal funding – something the President of the United States is not empowered to do.

Now, the White House has decided it’s perfectly acceptable for America’s president to speak at a far-right wing convention that is embracing Yiannopoulos, even after his comments in the 2015 tape, which include, “I’m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.”

Yiannopoulos, in a separate video, asked comedian Joe Rogan, “So you’re saying you’ve never seen a 15-year-old girl, at any point in your life, that you thought was hot?” (Rogan, for the record, very clearly responded no.)

He also says, “there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who are sexually active younger.”

And: “This is one reason I hate the left. This stupid one size fits all policing of culture. … This sort of arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys you know understanding that many of us have.”

Some responses via Twitter:

Editor’s note: It is NCRM’s policy to not publish articles about Milo Yiannopoulos unless they involve actual and important news. It is also our policy to no longer use the term “alt-right” unless it’s in an appropriate context. We believe this article meets those standards.