CPAC Drops Featured Speaker Young Pharaoh Over ‘Reprehensible Views’

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the CPAC convention, at the convention in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 28, 2019. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

The Conservative Political Action Conference on Monday announced it was dropping a featured speaker.

“We have just learned that someone we invited to CPAC has expressed reprehensible views that have no home with our conference or our organization. The individual will not be participating at our conference,” organizers of the conference, known as CPAC, said in a tweet.

A CPAC official confirmed to The Epoch Times that the person is Young Pharaoh.

Young Pharaoh was described on CPAC’s schedule as a philosopher, scholar, and musician. He was slated to participate in a panel discussion titled “Please Check the Number and Dial Again: Doubt, Dysfunction, and the Price of Missed Opportunities.”

In posts on social media, the rapper responded by saying: “This is censorship at its best. All because I said: ‘I do not believe in the validity of Judaism and am willing to place $50,000 on myself to debate the top Jewish Rabbi.’ Now I’m no longer invited to CPAC, racist, dictatorship, Young Pharaoh.”

CPAC’s decision came after Media Matters for America, a liberal nonprofit that attacks Republicans and was started by Hillary Clinton ally David Brock, highlighted posts of Young Pharaoh denigrating Judaism, including one in which he said that the religion is a “complete lie.”

In another post, he wrote: “There isn’t a Jew on this planet I wouldbt [sic] destroy in a debate.”

The American Jewish Committee, a Jewish advocacy group, was among the organizations that had pushed for Young Pharaoh to be pulled from the panel.

“CPAC leadership must denounce his antisemitic conspiracy theories and act to ensure that Jew-hatred has no place at the conference,” it said in a tweet.

CPAC, one of the largest conservative gatherings in the country, has a theme this year titled “America Uncanceled.”

The conference is scheduled to take place from Feb. 25 through Feb. 28 in Orlando, Florida.

Speakers include former President Donald Trump, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and “Fox & Friends” host Pete Hegseth.

Dan Schneider, head of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the event, told The Epoch Times that the theme of the conference reflects what he says is the growing threat to constitutionally-enshrined liberties.

“It’s so important for Americans to understand why these rights are critical to freedom, why the left is now attacking each one of these amendments, and why we must preserve the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution,” he said.

Allen Zhong contributed to this report.