Former US president Donald Trump on Saturday defended hosting known white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, saying Fuentes was not invited to his Florida residence but arrived announced in the company of Kanye West.
"Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about," Trump said in a statement.
West, currently going by the moniker Ye, recently went on a series of increasingly bizarre anti-Semitic rants including posting on Twitter that he would go "death con 3" on Jewish people. He was then dropped by his talent agency and several fashion companies. On Friday he announced that he was going to be running for president in 2024, despite not having filed the necessary paperwork, and asked Trump if he would be his running mate.
Fuentes is described as a "white supremacist" by the U.S. Justice Department. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), his record includes "Holocaust revisionism" and outright Holocaust denial. While announcing his campaign, West also posted texts on Twitter that appeared to be with Fuentes as part of a “YE24” group chat.
ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt expressed shock at the development. “Nick Fuentes is among the most prominent and unapologetic anti-Semites in the country. He’s a vicious bigot and known Holocaust denier who has been condemned by leading figures from both political parties here,” he said.
David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel, voiced disapproval of the meeting. “Even a social visit from an anti-Semite 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,” Friedman tweeted.