Trump rebuked over 'unacceptable' dinner with Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes
CBC
Former U.S. president Donald Trump is facing renewed attention and criticism for his long history of turning a blind eye to bigotry after dining with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West just days into his third campaign for the White House.
Trump had dinner on Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida with West, who is now known as Ye, as well as Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white nationalist rhetoric.
The meeting drew immediate criticism from Trump critics, as well as from some supporters, including David Friedman, who served as Trump's ambassador to Israel.
"To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this. Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable," Friedman wrote on Twitter. "I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong."
On Saturday, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, a potential 2024 presidential rival, also denounced antisemitism, without directly referring to the dinner or the president under whom he served.
"Anti-Semitism is a cancer," Pompeo wrote, adding: "We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world's oldest bigotry."
U.S. President Joe Biden, asked about the Trump dinner meeting while vacationing in Nantucket, Mass., replied, "You don't want to hear what I think."
Ye, who says he, too, is running for president in 2024, has made his own series of antisemitic comments in recent weeks, leading to his suspension from social media platforms, his talent agency dropping him and companies like Adidas cutting ties with him. The sportswear manufacturer has also launched an investigation into his conduct.
In a statement from the White House, spokesperson Andrew Bates said: "Bigotry, hate and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America — including at Mar-A-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned."
Trump, in a series of statements on Friday, said he had "never met and knew nothing about" Fuentes before he arrived with Ye at his club. But Trump also did not acknowledge Fuentes's long history of racist and antisemitic remarks, nor did he denounce either man's defamatory statements.
Trump wrote of Ye on his social media platform that "we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on 'Tucker Carlson."' He added, "Why wouldn't I agree to meet? Also, I didn't know Nick Fuentes."
The former president has a long history of failing to unequivocally condemn hate speech.
During his 2016 campaign for president, Trump waffled when asked to denounce the Ku Klux Klan after he was endorsed by the group's former leader, saying in a televised interview that he didn't "know anything about David Duke."
In 2017, in the aftermath of the deadly white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Va., Trump was widely criticized for saying there was "blame on both sides" for the violence.
