GOP lawmakers condemn Trump's meeting with Kanye West and white nationalist Fuentes
Category: News & Politics
Via: tessylo • 4 years ago • 50 commentsBy: Jon Ward ·Chief National Correspondent
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
GOP lawmakers condemn Trump's meeting with Kanye West and white nationalist Fuentes
Donald Trump, Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Andrew Harnik/AP, Ashley Landis/AP, William Edwards/AFP via Getty Images)
Prominent Republican lawmakers on Monday condemned former President Donald Trump’s dinner last week with two men who have expressed virulently antisemitic views.
Trump ate at his Mar-a-Lago compound with the rapper Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, and far-right media figure Nick Fuentes.
Ye has drawn criticism in recent weeks for a series of antisemitic rants . He’s also been accused by former co-workers of praising Adolf Hitler .
West embraces Trump in the Oval Office, Oct. 11, 2018. (Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)
Fuentes became a white supremacist activist shortly after Trump was elected president in 2016. He said in 2017 that “a tidal wave of white identity is coming,” he has cast doubt on whether the Holocaust took place, and he has said that the era of Jim Crow segregation and racial terrorism against Black people in America was “better for them.”
“So I help a seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black, Ye, who has been decimated in his business and virtually everything else, and who has always been good to me, by allowing his request for a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, alone, so that I can give him very much needed ‘advice,’” Trump wrote over the weekend on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Trump then referred to Fuentes and another dinner guest as people he “didn’t know.”
Fuentes, then an 18-year-old student at Boston University, rallies in support of Trump on Jan. 30, 2017. (Christopher Evans/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
Republicans currently in positions of political power were largely quiet about Trump’s dinner until Monday. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was the first nationally known Republican official to weigh in on the meeting.
“I am extremely proud that Georgia’s relationship with Israel and the Jewish community has never been stronger. Racism, antisemitism, and denial of the Holocaust have no place in the Republican Party and are completely un-American,” Kemp told a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday morning.
A little after lunchtime, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., became the first Republican member of the Senate to comment. Unlike Kemp, Cassidy mentioned Trump by name.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is one of a small number of Republican leaders to criticize Trump by name for his meeting with Ye and Fuentes. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)
“President Trump hosting racist antisemites for dinner encourages other racist antisemites. These attitudes are immoral and should not be entertained. This is not the Republican Party,” Cassidy said in a statement .
Shortly after that, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told a reporter at the Capitol, “I condemn white supremacy and antisemitism. The president should never have had a meal or even a meeting with Nick Fuentes.”
“It sends the wrong signal for him to meet and have dinner with [Fuentes],” Collins elaborated in a statement to Yahoo News.
More Senate Republicans are expected to condemn Trump later on Monday.
In an interview airing Monday night with journalist Leland Vittert, former Vice President Mike Pence likewise criticized Trump for dining with Fuentes.
“President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize for it,” Pence said. “And he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.”
“That being said ... I don’t believe Donald Trump is an antisemite,” Pence added.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has never been shy about criticizing Trump, and he did so again on Monday.
“There is no bottom to the degree to which he’s willing to degrade himself, and the country for that matter. Having dinner with those people was disgusting,” Romney told NBC News .
“I voted to remove him from office twice,” Romney continued. “I don’t think he should be president of the United States. I don’t think he should be the nominee of our party in 2024. And I certainly don’t want him hanging over our party like a gargoyle.”
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told CNN that Trump’s dinner with Fuentes was “a bad idea on every level.”
“I don't know who's advising him on his staff, but I hope that whoever that person was got fired,” he said.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., also decried the dinner , telling CNN, “It’s ridiculous you would do something with someone who espouses those views.”
Late Monday, a spokeswoman for Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, provided a statement to Yahoo News as well.
"It’s unfortunate that it continually needs to be said, but of course the man who’s dedicated his career to stamping out hate and racism thinks it’s a bad idea for anyone to elevate racists or anti-Semites," said Scott spokeswoman Caroline Anderegg. "Senator Scott’s vision for America is rooted in opportunity, optimism, and freedom—standing in stark contrast with the recent comments from Kanye West and the vile rhetoric of Nick Fuentes."
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It was bizarre a couple days ago when one of our prominent right wing members declared that this "is not a news story".
But it is likely a dominant view among rank and file trumpsters, who dont give a damn about what Mitt Romney thinks.
Sounds like a great guy, whoever it was.
How does somebody bringing somebody unknown to dinner rate as a news story?
Nick Fuentes is not an "unknown". Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar spoke at one of his conferences. Your desire to make excuses for Trump has no bottom. We all know that.
Trump says that he has someone like Kanye West to dinner , at Trump's home, because West says nice things about him on television. Trump is evidently not concerned at all about being associated with a high profile anti-semite.
You think these are not stories? LMAO.
I had no idea of who he was before this incident. I doubt that millions of Americans have any idea of who he is either.
Who gives a fuck?
There a lot of young entertainers that I have no idea who they are and couldnt identify them if my life depended on it. That doesnt make them unknown.
Fuentes is known along the same lines as the Proud Boys are known and the Oath Keepers are known, except he has had GOP congresspeople speak at one of his white supremacist (America First) rallies.
If the headline without the "White Nationalist" was the only point of reference, with no backstory, I too would have said "Nick who?". And still will. I, like you, don't give a shit.
I don't really keep up with fringe groups or extremists. The only ones I take note of are the ones invited to the White House via Obama and Biden.
Donald Trump loves people who love him, no matter who they are, QAnon or white supremacists. I know it, and you know it. He has said so.
BLM is without a doubt a racist/terror group. Both Obama and Biden invited them to the White House.
The difference is how the media frames and/or features these stories. I'll bet many Americans don't even know that Obama and Biden met with that group, yet the Trump home dinner is drummed relentlessly into everyone's mind.
You may not keep up but it seems that Republican Jews sure do.
Jewish Republicans turn on Trump after dinner with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes
You forgot your link
One of many links. Republicans both Jewish and none Jewish have turned on Trump.
[deleted]
It all depends on the freak out by the left and what they can claim (with zero evidence). (note lack of link in 6.2.9)
he's not
Considering we talked at length about the Charlottesville rally that was organized by Fuentes and I've mentioned him a few times in your threads, I call bullshit.
YOU should. It's your party. By not calling the guy out as a horrible human being you by default are supporting him and those like him in YOUR party. By not calling Fuentes and Ye out they get bolder and YOUR party gets smaller. But hey, if you're okay with blatant bigotry and anti-Semitism then continue to overlook the plank in your eye as you focus on the splinter in others'
Then lets see the evidence.
The only thing I ever recall anyone talking about was Trump's statement on it. As far as what the two groups did, antifa being one of them, simply does not interest me. The bottom line is that people who tear down statues & monuments deserve 10 years in prison.
That's not the GOP, however YOUR party is without a doubt, the party of rioting, hate and violence.
Here is the inside story of the dinner. Seems Mr. Trump got punked.
And the fix to avoid it happening again.
And as it turns out, he didn't know Fuentes
Nor do most normal human beings.
I know. How dare I expect you to back up your unfounded claims.
Nope
We've heard a number of different excuses from Thunder Mouth about this and not one of them rings true.
He was simply appealing to his fans (followers).
Trump continues to self destruct....shedding yet more supporters every day.
His detractors should be overjoyed.
Let's say moron Trump didn't actually know who was coming, and didn't know who this fool Fuentes was. I don't actually believe he didn't, but for the sake of argument I'll pretend to take him at his word where he didn't know who this guy was. He can't possibly not know now. Yes, Trump is infinitely stupid, but he can't be that ultimately stupid that after all this media attention he still doesn't know who Fuentes is.
So my question is why after "learning" who Fuentes is, hasn't Trump come out and denounced him?