CPAC turns ugly: Melee nearly breaks out when protesters and attendees clash

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
Font Size:

A melee nearly ensued today outside Mitt Romney’s speech at CPAC, when protesters blocked a large TV screen showing Romney’s speech.

I captured this grainy video on my iPhone. In the background, you can hear one man telling protesters: “You are left-wing fascists,” and later asking, “why don’t you go hang out with Mussolini?”

Another young lady can be heard yelling for her dad — a CPAC attendee upset with the protesters — to “come on.”

“Dad, you can’t do anything about it,” she pleaded. “I’m just scared my dad’s going to like, knock them out,” she later told me.

Hotel security later arrived and removed the protesters (amid CPAC cheers). Here’s that video:

Matt K. Lewis