By all accounts, the mood at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference has been downright celebratory of President Donald Trump. On Saturday afternoon, however, one speaker told attendees some things they didn’t want to hear.
CPAC speaker calls conservatives “hypocrites” for ignoring Trump’s sexual harassment allegations
The crowd wasn’t happy, and security escorted her out for her protection when the panel ended.
Andrew Prokop is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He’s worked at Vox since the site’s launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker’s Washington, DC, bureau.
Mona Charen, a longtime conservative writer and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, appeared as a panelist for a discussion called “#UsToo: Left out by the Left.” And, when asked what gets her “riled up” about modern feminism, she criticized conservatives for being willing to look the other way about allegations about both Roy Moore — and President Donald Trump.
“I’m actually gonna twist this around a bit and say that I’m disappointed in people on our side,” Charen said. “For being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party. Who are sitting in the White House. Who brag about their extramarital affairs. Who brag about mistreating women. And because he happens to have an R after his name, we look the other way, we don’t complain.”
She continued: “This is a party that was ready to endorse — the Republican Party endorsed Roy Moore, for the Senate in the state of Alabama even though he was a credibly accused child molester. You can not claim that you stand for women and put up with that.” (At this point, several attendees began shouting things like “Not true!” and “It was a witch hunt!”)
Later in the discussion, Charen criticized CPAC itself, for inviting far right French politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen to speak. “I think the only reason she was here is because she’s named Le Pen,” Charen said. “And the Le Pen name is a disgrace. Her grandfather is a racist and a Nazi. She claims that she stands for him. And the fact that CPAC invited her is a disgrace.” (She was loudly booed.)
According to Politico Magazine’s Tim Alberta, three security guards escorted Charen out for her own protection afterward.
