Trump Says Nick Fuentes’ White Supremacist Views ‘Weren’t Expressed’ At ‘Very Quick Dinner’—But Appears To Stop Short Of Condemning Him

Topline

Former President Donald Trump told a Fox News digital reporter on Tuesday white supremacist Nick Fuentes did not discuss his racist and antisemitic views during a dinner involving the two last week, with the ex-president once again insisting he “had never heard of Nick Fuentes” yet apparently sidestepping an outright condemnation of him.

Then-President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 19, … [+] 2020. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Trump claimed the meal between himself, Fuentes and rapper Kanye West—whose business empire collapsed recently after a series of antisemitic remarks—was a “very quick meal” and “uneventful,” and Fuentes’ views “wouldn’t have been accepted.”

Few details have been released about what was said during the dinner at Mar-A-Lago, though West said Trump started “screaming” at him when the rapper said he was running for president in 2024 and wanted Trump to be his running mate.

Trump told Fox News that West approached him wanting “advice” and he later extended an invitation for dinner knowing “Kanye had difficulties, including financial difficulties.”

Trump has asserted that Fuentes was an uninvited guest brought along by West.

Trump maintains he holds no antisemitic views himself, calling himself a “best friend” to Israel in large part because he decided to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018.

Crucial Quote

“I had never heard of the man—I had no idea what his views were and they weren’t expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn’t have been accepted,” Trump told Fox News.

Key Background

Trump has faced immense blowback from fellow Republicans over the dinner, including from former Vice President Mike Pence, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said the meeting makes it “highly unlikely” Trump will win another term in 2024. Trump fired back with a series of insults, telling Fox News that McConnell is “a loser for our nation and for the Republican Party.” Fuentes, 24, is a far-right extremist who has grown a following over the past few years, notably through starting the America First Political Action Conference in 2020 as an anti-Israel counterpart to the more mainstream Conservative Political Action Coalition, and encouraging violence to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election. He’s been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for using his online presence “to further conspiracy theories about the impending destruction of the white race, also known as white genocide.'”

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Key Facts

Crucial Quote

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