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(Trends Wide) — Former President Donald Trump hosted white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence this week, demonstrating his continued willingness to associate with figures who hold quite public anti-Semitic views. as he embarks on another run for the White House.
West, who legally changed his name to Ye, posted a video Thursday on Twitter saying that Trump “is really impressed with Fuentes,” who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic and racist comments, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Sources, West said in the Twitter video, “is actually a loyalist” to Trump, unlike others who he says left the former president after the 2020 election.
In a text message conversation West tweeted Thursday, he and Fuentes said the two met with the former president. A source confirmed to Trends Wide Trump’s dinner with Fuentes and West, who in turn was the subject of controversy for repeating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and making other offensive claims during a podcast appearance in October.
Trump acknowledged the dinner in a post on Truth Social on Friday: “Last week, Kanye West called me for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Shortly after, he showed up unexpectedly with three of his friends, whom I hadn’t heard from. “We had dinner Tuesday night with many members present in the backyard. Dinner was quick and uneventful. Then they went to the airport.”
Trump repeated later Friday that he “didn’t know” Fuentes and had offered West both business and political advice.
“I told him he definitely shouldn’t be running for president, ‘any voter you may have should vote for TRUMP,'” the former president wrote on Truth Social. “Anyway, we got along great, he didn’t express any anti-Semitism, and I thanked him for all the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.'”
West’s recent anti-Semitic comments caused companies he was affiliated with, including Adidas and Balenciaga, to suspend relations with him. Kanye has made numerous inflammatory statements over the years, including claims that slavery was a “choice” and that “racism is an outdated concept.”
The Anti-Defamation League identifies Fuentes as a white supremacist and he has been banned from most major social media platforms for his white nationalist rhetoric. Fuentes was present on the grounds of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 and has promoted Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about 2020 voter fraud. The House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6 issued a subpoena to Fuentes in January.
West tweeted late Tuesday night that he had kept Trump waiting during his first visit to Mar-a-Lago because of rain and traffic. And Right Wing Watch, a project of the left-wing group People for the American Way, released footage Tuesday of West and Fuentes walking through the Miami airport together. Those images were included in the video that West posted on Twitter.
— Kristen Holmes contributed to this reporting.
