Donald Trump: A racist and bigot gathering with others of his kindThe disgraced and criminally-corrupt former president hosted anti-semite rapper Kanye West and racist, white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. Birds of a toxic feather? Yep.By DOUG THOMPSON
November 28, 2022![[Linked Image from capitolhillblue.com]](https://capitolhillblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/112722fuentes-1.jpeg)
Nick Fuentes, the far-right white supremacist, sporting a Trump “Make America Great Again” hat, holds a rally at the Lansing Capitol, in Lansing, Mich., Nov. 11, 2020.
(Nicole Hester/Ann Arbor News via AP)
How many examples of disgraced and criminally-corrupt former president Donald Trump are needed to get the attention of the lockstep Republican followers who continue to support a man under investigation for sedition and keep quiet when the latest revelations should send them shunning the MAGA cult that embraces this tyrant and predator in their midst.
Trump has refused to condemn the slew of racists, White supremacists, bigots, and anti-semites who support him openly, appear at rallies sporting “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hats and call him a “great president.”
But some Republicans are at least raising questions about Trump hosting the anti-semitic rapper Kanye West, who now calls himself “Ye” and racist white supremacist Nick Fuentes, a rapid far-right activist, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week.
Reports the Associated Press:
Trump had dinner Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago club 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.
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.
Trump, in a series of statements 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’ 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?”
Oh, we can think of a boatload of reasons to avoid bigots like West and Fuentes, but Trump has a long and sordid history of getting cozy with racists and the like.
In his 2016 campaign, Trump didn’t condemn former KKK leader David Duke’s endorsement. In a TV interview claimed he didn’t “know anything about David Duke.” Then photos of him meeting with Duke surfaced.
After deadly white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said there was “blame on both sides” for the violence.
Trump’s rallies often feature “inflammatory rhetoric” from white-nationalist U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who also spoke at a far-right conference organized by Fuentes.
Adds the AP report on the dinner at Mar-a-Lago:
Ye first shared details of the dinner in a video he posted to his Twitter account Thursday. Ye said he had traveled to Florida to ask Trump to be his 2024 running mate, and that the meeting had grown heated, with Trump “perturbed” by his request and Ye angered by Trump’s criticism of his estranged wife, Kim Kardashian.
“When Trump started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was gonna lose. I mean, has that ever worked for anyone in history, telling Ye that I’m going to lose?” Ye asked in the video. “You’re talking to Ye!”
Ye also said Trump was “really impressed with Nick Fuentes,” whom he described as “actually a loyalist” and said he’d asked Trump, “Why when you had the chance did you not free the January 6th-ers?” referring to the defendants who were alleged to have participated in the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
While many Republicans, as usual, kept quiet about their leader Trump’s time with West and Fuentes, Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman was not quiet when he tweeted :
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. I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.
Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State under Trump, added:
Anti-Semitism is cancer. We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.
Current White House Spokesman Andrew Bates issued this statement:
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.
President Biden, Bate’s boss, was vacationing on Nantucket island in Massachusetts over the Thanksgiving weekend when reporters asked him about what he thought of Trump hosting racists and antisemites at Mar-a-Lago. “You don’t want to hear what I think,” he said.
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