Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump announced today that he will no longer be attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
The campaign said that he will be rallying in Kansas and Florida at the time of the conference.
“Because of this, he will not be able to speak at CPAC as he has done for many consecutive years,” campaign officials said. “Mr. Trump would like to thank Matt Schlapp and all of the executives at CPAC and looks forward to returning to next year, hopefully as president of the United States.”
This announcement was met with disappointment by the American Conservative Union (ACU), the organization behind the conference. They expressed a suspicion that Trump is sending signals to the organization.
“We are very disappointed Donald Trump has decided at the last minute to drop out of CPAC,” said the ACU. “This comes at a critical time in our movement’s history. His decision sends a clear message to grassroots conservatives.”
Notably, Trump was the quickest speaker at the conference to accept his invitation, doing so within 15 minutes of being emailed. The ACU still considers its conference one of the most important factors of the conservative movement.
“CPAC is the heart and soul of the conservative movement and will be, with or without Mr. Trump,” it said. “Since we invited him several months ago—and Mr. Trump accepted our invitation and terms —we made it clear all candidates would follow the same format. And now he is backing out.”
One would think Trump agrees with its opinion on the conference, given that he’s donated more than $100,000 to the ACU.
Trump’s declining to attend the conference occurred in the midst of what many call a civil war within the Republican Party. Though Trump currently aligns himself with the party, many Republican politicians have rallied against him.
Featured image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
