According to a report initially published by Axios on Friday, former President Trump hosted a meal with white nationalist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida this week.
The dinner took place on Tuesday night alongside the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. Ye had said that when Trump asked the former president to be his running mate in 2024, Trump was “basically screaming at me at the table.” In a video Ye uploaded to Twitter on Friday, he made a passing reference to the lunch and the presence of Fuentes.
In the video titled “Mar-a-Lago debrief, ” he said, “So Trump is impressed with Nick Fuentes, and Nick Fuentes, unlike so many of the lawyers, and so many of the people that he was left with on his 2020 campaign, he’s a loyalist.” Fuentes is a loyalist in contrast to so many lawyers and the people that Trump was left with on his campaign.”
Fuentes is notorious for his racist and antisemitic statements, which include raising questions about the holocaust and has earned him the label of “white supremacist” from the Department of Justice (DOJ). Ye, subjected to a wave of criticism this year for his antisemitic comments, had also planned to run for president in 2020 after paying a visit to Trump in the Oval Office.
“This guy’s smart, where did you find this guy?” Fuentes says Trump said of him at dinner, as he talks on his livestream show
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 26, 2022
In a statement provided to Axios, President Trump said, “Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago.” “Kanye and I were the only ones supposed to attend our dinner meeting, but he showed up with a guest I had never seen before and was completely unfamiliar with.” In a second statement published on Trump’s Truth Social platform on Friday evening, the president noted that he “did not know Nick Fuentes.”
“Ye, who was once known as Kanye West, approached me for guidance regarding some of his challenges, particularly those associated with his enterprise. A shorter amount of time was spent talking about politics, during which I advised him that he should not run for president and that whatever voters he may have should cast their ballots for Donald Trump.
“Anyway, we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, and I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.'” “Anyway, we got along great, and he expressed no anti-Semitism.” Why wouldn’t I say yes to getting together? Trump stated.
To obtain additional information, The Hill has reached out to representatives for both Trump and Fuentes. Last week, Trump made his formal entry into the race for the White House in 2024, which will be his severe third run for the presidency.
To this point, he is the only prominent Republican to enter the race to challenge President Biden; however, several other Republican officials and members of the Trump administration, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have acknowledged that they may mount a challenge.
The House committee that met on January 6 issued subpoenas to several leaders of the “America First” movement, including Fuentes. Fuentes is a prominent supporter of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election will be stolen.
On January 6, 2021, he was present on the grounds of the Capitol, but he has not been accused of entering the building while the riot was in progress. According to reports, he posted the following on Twitter the day after the uprising: “The Capitol Siege was f—ing awesome, and I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t.” Far-right After speaking at an event in March that was organized by Fuentes, Republican Representatives Paul Gosar (Arizona) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) were both criticized by members of their party.
The Anti-Defamation League’s head, Jonathan Greenblatt, was quoted as saying that the idea that Trump “or any serious contender for higher office would meet with him and validate him by sharing a meal and spending time is appalling.” The New York Times, which confirmed Trump’s dinner with Fuentes on Friday afternoon, also reported that the sit-down was harshly condemned by Greenblatt.
The New York Times reported that Greenblatt said the idea that Trump “or any serious contender for higher office would meet with him and validate You can’t claim to be against hatred while simultaneously associating with people who practice it. It is that easy.”
Chris Christie, the Republican who served as the former governor of New Jersey and who is also rumoured to be considering a run for the White House, told the Times that “This is just another example of an awful lack of judgment from Donald Trump, which, combined with his previous poor judgments, make him an untenable general election candidate for the Republican Party in 2024.” Christie is a former Trump ally and is rumoured to be considering a run for the White House.
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