Former President Donald J. Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and racist who is one of the country’s most prominent young white supremacists, at Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida on Tuesday evening, advisers to Mr. Trump admitted on Friday. Mr. Fuentes is one of the most prominent young white supremacists in the country.
In addition, the musician Kanye West, who has also received criticism for making antisemitic sentiments, was present at the meal. According to the advisors, Mr. West took Mr. Fuentes along with him when he flew to meet with Mr. Trump at the club known as Mar-a-Lago.
Karen Giorno, a senior political operator who worked on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign as his state director in Florida, was the fourth person to attend the meal, and she also verified that Mr. Fuentes was there. Giorno was one of the four people who attended the event. On Friday, there were many failed attempts made to get in touch with Mr. Fuentes via a third party.
Because of his leadership of an annual white supremacist event that is called the America First Political Action Conference, Mr. Fuentes, who is now 24 years old, has developed a high profile on the far right and forged ties with Republican lawmakers such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona in recent years. He has done this largely as a result of his involvement in the event.
On his podcast, Mr. Fuentes, who denies the Holocaust and is unabashedly racist, freely employs terrible language. In recent weeks, he has called for the military to be deployed into Black communities and demanded that Jews leave the nation. He also calls for Jews to leave the country.
It is unknown how much knowledge Mr. Trump had of Mr. Fuentes’ well-documented prejudice and radicalism prior to the meal they had together.
Some of the previous press coverage of Mr. West’s visit to Mar-a-Lago had incorrectly stated that Mr. Fuentes did not attend the meal. These reports had cited individuals who were close to Mr. Trump.
A source who was informed on what went place at the event said that Mr. Fuentes portrayed himself as a member of Mr. Trump’s core supporter group during the dinner. Mr. Trump made the comment that his advisors want him to read his speeches off a teleprompter and they don’t like it when he ad-libs statements.
Mr. Fuentes said that Mr. Trump’s fans favoured the ad-libs, at which point Mr. Trump reportedly turned to the others and announced that he loved Mr. Fuentes, adding, “He understands me.” Mr. Fuentes stated that Mr. Trump’s supporters favoured the ad-libs.
Mr. Trump claimed the following in a statement that he released on Friday: “Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Kanye and I were the only ones who were supposed to attend our dinner meeting, but he showed up with a visitor who I had never seen before and about whom I knew nothing. Regarding Mr. Fuentes’ views, the statement provided no information whatsoever.
Mr. Trump said that Mr. West “unexpectedly walked up with three of his pals, whom I knew nothing about” in a post that he published later on Friday on the social media website he owns called Truth Social. According to him, the meal was held “on the back patio with a large number of members present.” The evening was over in a flash, and there were no major events. After that, they hurried out to the airport.
Mr. Trump made a third attempt to defend himself early Friday evening by saying that Mr. West had sought business advice from him, “expressed no anti-Semitism,” and that he “appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.'” Mr. Trump said that Mr. West had sought business advice from him. Why wouldn’t I say yes to arranging a meeting? Nick Fuentes was another name that was unfamiliar to me.
Even if we take at face value Mr. Trump’s protestation that he knew nothing of Mr. Fuentes, the apparent ease with which Mr. Fuentes arrived at the home of a former president who is under multiple investigations — including one related to keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago long after he left office — underscores the undisciplined and uncontrolled nature of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency just 10 days into his third campaign for the White House. The investigation into
The fact that Mr. Trump met with both Mr. Fuentes and Mr. West was criticised by a small group of Republicans, among whom was at least one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies.
At least seven individuals with ties to his America First group have been charged with federal charges in connection with the assault on the United States Capitol. Mr. Fuentes was served with a subpoena in January by the House select committee investigating the assault on the Capitol on January 6. The subpoena requested information concerning Mr. Fuentes’s participation in the attack.
Mr. West, who ran for president in 2020 and has said that he would run again in 2024, shared a video on Twitter in which he recounted the meal. In the video, he also mentioned that he will run for president again in 2024. He said that Mr. Trump had a “very positive impression” of Mr. Fuentes.
Mr. West also claimed that he requested Mr. Trump to be his running mate, and he said that Mr. Trump made disparaging comments about Mr. West’s former wife, Kim Kardashian.