Sen. Marco Rubio and the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference were still fighting Tuesday over whether the Republican presidential candidate has declined to attend next week’s gathering of conservative activists, a question that still seems impossible to answer even after talking to both sides.
“This morning his campaign informed me that they were not going to be able to commit to a time for CPAC,” Matt Schlapp, who chairs the American Conservative Union, told the Washington Examiner Tuesday afternoon.
He stressed that the alleged conversation took place over the phone.
“I would love Marco Rubio to be at CPAC, but I’m exhausted from trying to explain to them that it’s an important thing to do,” he added. “It’s up to them to decide how they fill their schedule.”
The senator’s campaign, for its part, denied that any such phone call took place.
The ACU, which organizes CPAC, torched Rubio in a statement Tuesday, and claimed that the senator’s campaign had “informed ACU’s chairman that their candidate [was] unwilling to make time to meet with activists and answer their questions at CPAC 2016.”
The statement was provided first to Breitbart News, which then caused a stir by reporting that Rubio was definitely “snubbing” the annual political conference.
Schlapp repeated in his conversation with the Examiner that Rubio’s team had called to turn down the ACU’s invitation.
“I want Marco Rubio to be at CPAC,” he added. “Why would I say that they turned us down if they didn’t turn us down? I consider it a big missed opportunity, for the movement and for him.”
Schlapp declined to say who he spoke to from the Rubio camp.
“I’m not going to give the name of the person I talked to, but they know it happened,” he said.
However, when the Examiner asked if it was true that someone from the senator’s campaign had called to inform the ACU that the senator would not attend CPAC in March, Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Conant replied, “nope.”
“That is not true,” he said, stressing that there was no phone call between the ACU chairman and the Rubio campaign.
Schlapp insisted his version of events is accurate.
“The one thing that they should not do is question my integrity. I’ve been working with them for months to try and make this work, and I’m just disappointed that it wasn’t able to work. I have no malice towards them,” he said. “They made a decision to not come, and I think that was a mistake. I also think it would be a mistake to somehow ratchet this up, to pretend like this didn’t happen, because it did.”
Emails provided to the Examiner by the Rubio campaign showed that the Rubio camp conveyed to the ACU Tuesday morning, “We want to do it but can’t commit to a specific date or time at this point. If they have to take that as a no answer, we understand. But it’s not our intent.”
Schlapp interpreted that as a final “no.”
Rubio’s people explained Tuesday that it never rejected the ACU’s invite, and said that it simply hasn’t finalized its campaign schedule for March.
On March 1, 11 states vote on Super Tuesday and CPAC starts on March 3, which is the same day as a Republican debate in Detroit.
It’s “to be determined,” Conant told the Examiner of Rubio’s March schedule.
However, Schlapp isn’t buying the scheduling explanation from Rubio’s camp.
“I’ve worked on two presidential campaigns,” he said. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I understand how presidential campaign set their schedules, and the conference is in a week. Four out of the five [current GOP candidates] were able to set a time that was mutually agreeable, and work with us to have a good experience at CPAC.”
“Only one was not,” he added.
If the Rubio campaign eventually commits to attending CPAC, Schlapp said he’d be thrilled.
“I’ll take their call anytime,” he said, “but we’re a week out, and you got to be able to make these types of decisions. These are small decisions, these are scheduling decisions. You got to be able to make them, and I’d be happy to take his call. I consider him a friend, he has been a great conservative senator, and I’m sorry that it has come to this, but it is what it is.”
Schlapp previously worked as former President George W. Bush’s political director during his first term before working for Koch Industries. In addition, Schlapp has made numerous contributions to Senate campaigns in the past, including to Ted Cruz’s 2012 Senate campaign and his wife Mercedes Schlapp contributed to Rubio’s 2010 Senate primary campaign.
