Even in Red Florida, Donald Trump’s pre-Thanksgiving dinner with a “seriously troubled” rapper and far-right “Holocaust denier” activist sparked acidity among Republican leaders and within the former president’s base.
American senses Marco Rubio and Rick Scott responded this week to a nationwide torrent of complaints about Trump’s dinner with Kanye West, posing as Ye, and Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist, at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.
“I can tell you with certainty that Trump is (an anti-Semite), but this guy is evil,” Rubio said on CNN, referring to Fuentes.
Scott added, “There’s no position in the Republican Party for white supremacy and anti-Semitism, and that’s not true. I think all Republicans condemn white supremacy and anti-Semitism.
Previous stories: Trump launches after throwing salvos at DeSantis
Read more about Trump: Donald Trump enters 2024 presidential race, starring as a Republican in Florida
Anticipating 2024: Trump announces he will reappear at Mar-a-Lago. . . But what happens next?
The Nov. 22 Mar-a-Lago assembly also dismayed Trump loyalists, adding grassroots political activists who, the previous week, had applauded the former president’s entry into the 2024 White House race.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Randy Ross, chairman of the 2016 Orange County Trump Crusade. “I love Trump. I love everything about this man.
Annie Marie Delgado, who, as president of Trump Team 2020, organized voter registration and road demonstrations among the efforts, agreed.
“Send the guards back,” Delgado said of those in Trump’s orbit who allowed Fuentes and Ye to sit at the table with the former president.
Delgado said many members of Trump’s ranks and the chorus record brazenly berated Trump to avoid emboldening his rivals and enemies. replace the other people around you.
“I hope he takes a very serious look at who he has around him,” Delgado added.
Reacting to the backlash, Trump posted statements on his social media platform Truth Social in which he said he was advising Ye, whom he called “a man with serious problems, who happens to be black. “
At Trump’s events edition, the former president said he hoped to meet Ye alone in his box and just wanted to give Ye “much-needed advice” as “he has been decimated in his business and almost everything else. “
Trump said he and Ye “talked, to a lesser extent, about politics” and that the artist “explicit any anti-Semitism. “
As for his other tablemates, Trump claimed that one of them, possibly strategist Karen Giorno, “was a political user he hadn’t noticed in years. “As for Fuentes, Trump wrote, “Also, I didn’t know Nick Fuentes. “
You history it differently.
In a video he posted on his Twitter account, Ye said Trump “really got inspired by Nick Fuentes. “
In that recording, however, Ye said Trump began “screaming” after the rapper proposed that Trump, who just a week ago declared his candidacy for president, run for Ye’s vice presidency in 2024.
Ye said he became angry with Trump after the former president made a derogatory comment about the rapper’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
In addition to the nature of the meeting, far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos told NBC News on Tuesday that he hosted the dinner to “make life miserable for Trump. “
Trump’s likely disregard for not knowing who Fuentes is is far from having quelled the firestorm, and the former president faces growing public tension within the party.
“We strongly condemn the virulent anti-Semitism of Kanye West and Nick Fuentes and call on all political leaders to reject their hate messages and refuse to meet with them,” said Matt Brooks, director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Trump led a convention in Las Vegas last month organized through the Republican Jewish Coalition, which included former Vice President Mike Pence and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis did not comment on the matter, but Pence called the former president and told Trump to apologize for hosting visitors who spread anti-Semitic rhetoric and Holocaust denial.
“He speaks out against those Americans and their hateful rhetoric wholeheartedly,” Pence said in an interview with NewsNation.
Another organization, the Zionist Organization of America, also said Trump condemns Fuentes even if he didn’t know him, said Morton Klein, president of the pro-Israel organization. Last month, the organization presented Trump with the Theodor Herzl Gold Medallion for being a “champion of Israel and the Jewish people. “
“It just legitimizes and embodies natural hatred,” Klein said. This refers to a time of normal rise in anti-Semitism. “
On Capitol Hill, U. S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota called the dinner a “bad concept on every level. “Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, which hosts a presidential race in early 2024, said “it’s ridiculous that I had this meeting. “
U. S. Sen. Mitt Romney, an outspoken critic of Trump, said the dinner showed that “there’s no precedent to the extent that he’s willing to pass a downgrade, and the country, really. “
However, the most scathing comment came from a salvo fired by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said of Fuentes that “anyone who knows other people who hold that opinion, in my opinion, has very little chance of being elected president of the United States. “
Ye’s troubles began in part with a tweet in which he said he “will die 3 in JEWS” and wore clothes with the slogan “White Lives Matter” that is related to white supremacist groups. Controversies have led to major global brands, adding sports. use the Addidas conglomerate and the Gap clothing chain, to avoid doing business with Yeezy de Ye.
Fuentes, who attended the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville in 2017, referred to a “skillful white supremacist and organizer” through the Anti-Defamation League. He has gained a huge audience through his live exhibition and calls his fans “Groypers. “
Outside of a conservative convention in Texas last year, Fuentes defiantly, if sarcastically, declared that he would hold a press convention that he promised would be “the ultimate racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial speech in all of Dallas this weekend. “”
A third guest at the dinner that night was reportedly Karen Giorno, Trump’s number one campaign manager in Florida in 2016.
Giorno went on to paint over crusades, adding the failed crusade in Congress 2020 of Islamophobic and far-right activist Laura Loomer in Palm Beach County. He also served in the administration of President George H. W. Bush and as governor at the time. Rick Scott.
His attendance at the dinner led some members of Trump’s base to blame Giorno, who cannot be reached for comment, for ignoring Trump that night by ousting Fuentes or grooming the former president.
Delgado, a former Palm Beach Gardens councilman who now lives in Ocala, said he blamed Giorno. “She’s the leader,” Delgado said, adding that Trump didn’t yet know who Fuentes was. and political participation, obviously they have known.
“These other people he has so close to him have literally put up a wall between true loyalists, like us, who have never shied away from supporting him and will not shy away from supporting him and. . . it’s going to be problematic for him,” Delgado said.
Ross said he was “confused and concerned” that Giorno and Ye, as well as Fuentes, would end up at a table with the former president.
“How does Trump constantly surround himself with bad players when so many of us fight for him?” he said. “What was the purpose?To be fair to President Trump, was this designed to have a negative effect?”about his role in the presidential race?”
Ross said he didn’t know. But he believes such controversies will only raise more doubts about Trump’s bid for the White House as other potential contenders hover around.
“That’s not how we’re going to win in 2024,” he said of the ongoing drama. “His technique may not work now. It will not work with the base. There are already too many people asking too many questions and worrying about how we’re going to move things forward. “
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at the Palm Beach Post, a component of USA TODAY Florida Network. You can succeed with it in afins@pbpost. com. Help our journalism. Subscribe today.