Florida Sen. [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] will speak at CPAC after all.
“Sen. Marco Rubio has a strong conservative record and I’m honored to call him my friend,” said Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. “We are grateful that the conservative grassroots activists at CPAC will have the opportunity hear Sen. Rubio’s message at this important moment in history.”
The announcement comes after a day of drama between Rubio’s campaign and CPAC organizers.
On Tuesday, CPAC released a scathing statement about Rubio, saying the Republican had committed “a rookie mistake” by not accepting their invitation.
The Rubio campaign denied explicitly turning down CPAC, saying the candidate’s schedule was “TBD.”
But Schlapp told The Daily Caller that organizers had repeatedly tried to book Rubio but his campaign wouldn’t confirm a day. He said they took that this week as their invitation being declined.
But on Tuesday, Schlapp said he would still welcome Rubio to the event.
“I would right at this moment, if they called me now and said, ‘look there was a confusion over this, and Marco wants to address the activists on the main stage,’ I’d still try to make it work,” he said. “But the time is running short. And I explained it to them this morning we’re well passed the deadline.”