Kanye West Reportedly Fires Extremist Nick Fuentes From Political Team And Rehires Milo Yiannopoulos After Trump Dinner Rift

Topline

Rapper-turned-political-stunt-artist Kanye West has shaken up his long shot 2024 presidential campaign by firing white supremacist Nick Fuentes and reinstating right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, according to multiple reports, parting with the extremist he brought to a dinner with leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last year that embroiled the ex-president in controversy.

Kanye West aka Ye is seen on October 28, 2022 in Los Angeles. (Photo by MEGA/GC Images)

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Key Facts

Along with Fuentes, West—who lost his billionaire status last year following a string of antisemitic comments—has also reportedly ousted 2020 election denier and Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander.

Yiannopoulos—himself a hard-right activist who rose to prominence as an editor at Breitbart News—reportedly sent emails to Fuentes and Alexander informing them they were “terminated” and he had been appointed “director of his political operations.”

Forbes has not been able to authenticate the emails, which were first confirmed by the Daily Beast and later by Rolling Stone.

Key Background

West’s bizarre 2024 campaign has been marked by stops and starts, with the Daily Beast reporting last month West appeared to be making no serious effort and just wanted to be “left alone,” while his campaign does not appear to have accepted any donations. His 2024 foray comes after he ran for president in 2020 and only received 0.04% of the popular vote nationally despite celebrity endorsements from personalities like his then-wife Kim Kardashian and billionaire Elon Musk. West’s business empire essentially collapsed last year after he made a series of antisemitic comments and openly praised Nazi dictator and mass murderer Adolf Hitler, driving Adidas, Balenciaga and other brands to cut ties with the rapper. West fired Yiannopoulos from his team last year after Yiannopoulos took credit for arranging a Mar-A-Lago dinner featuring Trump, West and Fuentes, telling NBC News he did so “just to make Trump’s life miserable” since he felt the former president was ignoring his alt-right supporters. The dinner, which came just days after Trump announced his 2024 campaign, led to the former president facing widespread condemnation, including from many figures within his own party. Trump has repeatedly claimed Fuentes was an uninvited guest and said he was unaware of Fuentes’ views until after they shared dinner—a meal he later claimed was “very quick,” while Fuentes’ fringe views “weren’t expressed.” Fuentes is known in right-wing online circles for his strongly antisemitic views and his calls for violence after the 2020 presidential election. The Anti-Defamation League says he uses his online presence “to further conspiracy theories about the impending destruction of the white race, also known as white genocide.”

Tangent

Yiannopoulos was seen as one of the stars of the then-burgeoning alt-right movement of the mid-2010s, when he started making bounds into the mainstream with an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher and a deal with Simon & Schuster to publish his autobiography. But his rise came crashing down in 2017 after video clips emerged of him saying it was possible for 13-year-old boys to have “perfectly consensual” sexual relationships with adults. The clips led to the cancellation of his book deal and his resignation from Breitbart News, pushing Yiannopoulos into relative obscurity until he reemerged last year as an intern working in the office of hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). He later joined West’s campaign.

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