Earlier today, Twitter tongues got to wagging following reports that former President Donald Trump recently sat down and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with Kanye West (or Ye, if ya nasty) and Nick Fuentes, notorious white supremacist antisemitic groyper edgelord troll.
New w @zacharybasu: Trump talks with white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago dinner https://t.co/XSCZtUicbj
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 25, 2022
More from Axios:
Former President Trump dined and conversed with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: Trump’s direct engagement with a man labeled a “white supremacist” by the Justice Department, one week after declaring his 2024 candidacy, is likely to draw renewed outrage over the former president’s embrace of extremists.
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Fuentes, who frequently promotes racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, had been spotted with Ye at Mar-a-Lago, but reports erroneously suggested he did not have dinner with the former president.
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The Trump campaign and Fuentes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter if Fuentes responded to any requests for comment. He’s a garbage person who says garbage things and he’s better off being relegated to the flaming garbage heap of flaming garbage where he belongs. But Donald Trump is another story. There’s absolutely no question that the owes everyone an explanation. Why on earth would he be dining with someone like Nick Fuentes?
Well, apparently Trump finally got around to offering up a comment on the situation. And if you suspect that comment did him absolutely zero favors whatsoever, well, you’re absolutely correct:
Recommended
NEW: Statement from fmr President Trump in response to our story about his dinner w Ye and Fuentes: "Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about." https://t.co/RLfWtJTfzQ
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 25, 2022
OK. So. Let’s think about this for a minute. Even leaving Fuentes out of the equation, Donald Trump willingly and gladly welcomed Kanye West to Mar-a-Lago for a “dinner meeting.” Kanye West’s antisemitism has been out there for all to see since before this past Tuesday, and yet, Trump still agreed to dine with him. His defense is basically that “I only agreed to meet with one raging antisemite, not two.”
Accidentally had dinner with a white supremacist while intentionally having dinner with an antisemite. Oookaaaaay https://t.co/5lzZ1ZW3yM
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) November 25, 2022
We’ve seen some terrible defenses for bad decisions, but, man, if this one doesn’t take the cake … it’s gotta come really, really close.
https://twitter.com/TheH2/status/1596197895702822912
Or at least it could happen to anyone who literally doesn’t care about anything except his own ego.
You don’t just sit down and have dinner with a former president without him knowing who you are. Please spare us the gaslighting.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 25, 2022
Don't know how ANYONE can be OK with this. https://t.co/h3KDtNbzlF
— George Wept (@GeorgeWept) November 25, 2022
Well, if you’re a raging antisemite, you’re probably OK with it. But if you’re the kind of person who takes issue with antisemitism and bigotry in general, you have serious problems with it.
And if you’re a logical type of person, you also have some bones to pick:
https://twitter.com/InfiniteYorick/status/1596196170321301505
Does he routinely eat dinner at his private club with people he knows nothing about?
— Ruthie (@GoalLineFade69) November 25, 2022
It literally makes no sense. Donald Trump is suggesting that just anyone can show up at his place and have dinner with him and we shouldn’t find that strange or anything.
Fascinating that nobody would be vetting potential dinner guests for the former President https://t.co/HcshZYvPnO
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) November 25, 2022
Access to ex-presidents is tightly regulated and the Secret Service would have needed to clear racist, white nationalist, anti-Semite Nick Fuentes long before he would have been anywhere near Trump. Another obvious lie. https://t.co/1drKQwBdcd
— RRH Elections (@RRHElections) November 25, 2022
It definitely sounds like a lie. But what if it’s not a lie? What if Trump genuinely believes that he had no idea whatsoever that one of his dinner guests was an antisemitic white supremacist?
My guess is he is telling the truth. Which once again raises issues of political competence.
— Retired Exec (@ExecRetired) November 25, 2022
I actually completely believe it. In fact, I think Milo and Kanye intentionally set Trump up.
But the fact that he could be set up that easily and has no competent staff speaks volumes. Also, he chose to have dinner w a celeb in the midst of a month-long antisemitic meltdown. https://t.co/LlsSEUL21F
— AG (@AGHamilton29) November 25, 2022
Milo? Or are you talking about Fuentes?
Just need to make sure there isn't another layer to the madness here.
— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) November 25, 2022
Milo.
He's the one who planned and set the entire thing up from the Kanye side and apparently pushed for Fuentes to come (Jason Miller from trump's side)
— AG (@AGHamilton29) November 25, 2022
It was this tweet before I learned that Milo Yiannopoulos (insert Alec Guinness saying "now that's a name I've not heard in a long time" here) was a key coordinator of this whole affair, along w/Jason Miller.
It's a beautiful syzygy of alt-right crankitude and self-promotion! https://t.co/E5bFwjoXPu
— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) November 25, 2022
This is bad, guys. This is really bad.
Breitbart eviscerates Trump for the dinner: https://t.co/E0Z2f7WNFG
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 25, 2022
This is “Even Breitbart is condemning this” bad.
he's either catering to racists or his team is grossly incompetent and both are bad.
— Ben McDonald (@Bmac0507) November 25, 2022
Why not both? Donald Trump does not, in fact, have a magnificent brain, and he does not, in fact, hire the best people.
Once again, Trump has an easy opportunity to explicitly condemn the most cartoonish of antisemitic bigots, and once again conveniently fails to do so. He is constitutionally incapable of condemning those who praise him, which in practice means laundering his ugliest sycophants. https://t.co/q3SZuCFhES
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) November 25, 2022
Whether or not Donald Trump is lying or telling what he believes to be the truth at this point is effectively irrelevant. Because the fact remains that he’s hanging out with vile and nasty antisemites.
No excuse for this crap. He didn’t know? None of his staff knew? If he’s this much of an amateur, he shouldn’t he the nominee in 2024. https://t.co/VUSUN87lKY
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 25, 2022
In case it wasn’t already clear enough that he absolutely cannot be anywhere near the White House ever again, this should confirm it once and for all.
We can spend six years (but more realistically, two years) saying “This was just a dumb mistake; he doesn’t actually agree with Nick Fuentes,” which, while true, does literally nothing to help us win.
Or we can nominate someone who doesn’t put us in a position to have to do that https://t.co/1JTvensri4
— Max (@MaxNordau) November 25, 2022
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