Nick Fuentes holds racist conference across from CPAC

Nick Fuentes appears at an event outside Staten Island University Hospital in New York on Nov. 10, 2021. (Photo by Michael Edison Hayden)

The venue is a Residence Inn by Marriott. Hatewatch spoke with a hotel staff member prior to the event in a phone call on the afternoon of March 4. Hatewatch asked if Nick Fuentes and the America First Foundation were scheduled to hold an event that day, and the staffer confirmed. When asked about the event’s start time, the employee put Hatewatch on hold and came back to say it was a “private event” and the start time was not available to the public. The employee said the information came from the organizer.

Hatewatch reached out to Fuentes for comment via email on the evening of March 4 but did not receive a reply. 

Fuentes, who has repeatedly praised Hitler, sought to keep the location secret, saying on Telegram that he will provide information on the location and time of the event following former President Donald Trump’s Saturday evening speech at CPAC. Fuentes said he would provide “more details” once CPAC concluded In a post published around an hour and a half before Trump’s speech was scheduled to start. 

Fuentes leads a movement of “groypers,” a reference to a far-right meme of a giant toad. He has stated his goal is to to remake the Republican Party into “a truly reactionary party, "to remake the Republican Party into “a truly reactionary party,"

Fuentes has hosted the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) each year at a venue near CPAC since 2020. These gatherings have brought together white nationalists with prominent hard-right lawmakers. In 2021, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and former congressman Steve King (R-IA) addressed Fuentes’ supporters in an AFPAC event in Orlando, Florida. In 2022, Rep. Gosar, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Idaho Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin, and Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers spoke at a Fuentes event in Orlando, Florida.

Fuentes also had dinner with Trump and Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Nov. 22, 2022. Fuentes worked with Ye on his 2024 presidential campaign. Fuentes' work culminated in taking Ye on extremist conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' program, where he and Ye repeatedly praised Hitler. Fuentes has since left Ye's campaign.  

Promotional material for the event featured the lawmakers alongside prominent white nationalist figureheads, such as Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, and Peter Brimelow of VDARE.

Fuentes repeatedly referred to the Saturday event as a “rally,” rather than AFPAC. Fuentes stated in a Telegram post  on Thursday that he decided to postpone AFPAC’s fourth conference because “we got no play here in DC.” 

CPAC ejected Fuentes and several of his followers from the conference on Thursday evening, CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp confirmed. Hotel staff ejected several groypers, without Fuentes, from the conference on Saturday. One member of the group was holding what appeared to be a flag of some kind.

The event is Fuentes' first major public outing since several of his close collaborators left his group. 

CPAC appeared to have less attendees than previous years. Most speeches featured rows of empty seats in the main ballroom. 

Schlapp faced accusations he sexually harassed a male staffer on Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign. He denied the allegations.

High-profile Republicans like former Vice President Mike Pence skipped the event after the accusations came to light.