Former Vice President Mike Pence said Monday that Donald Trump made a “mistake” to recently have dinner with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at his Florida resort, and that the former president should apologize for this.
“President Trump was wrong to give a White nationalist, an anti-Semite, and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize for that. And he should denounce these individuals and their hate speech without reservation,” Pence told NewsNation in a clip released Monday night.
Trump “showed profoundly poor judgment in giving these individuals a seat at the table,” she said, adding that she did not believe Trump was “racist or bigoted.”
Trump faced swift backlash from members of his own party after hosting Fuentes and West at his Mar-a-Lago estate last Tuesday. The meeting came a week after the former president announced he would seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Pence, who is also considered the likely Republican nominee for 2024, has spoken favorably of Trump’s policies and his tenure in office, but has fallen out with the former president over his handling of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on USA. Capitol. He told CNN at a November town hall that Trump’s words and tweet on Jan. 6 “were reckless” and that he believes there will be “better choices” in 2024 than Trump.
Watch Pence’s response when asked if he will support Trump in 2024
Pence’s comments join a chorus of sharp criticism aimed at Trump in recent days.
Jason Greenblatt, who served as the White House’s Middle East envoy in the Trump administration, wrote in a CNN op-ed published Monday that the dinner “shouldn’t have happened. Period.”
“I hope President Trump will condemn Fuentes, West and their ilk for what they are – haters of Jews and haters of the institutions of the United States of America. People like Fuentes are dangerous to the United States. The President Trump I know would recognize this and issue this condemnation,” wrote Greenblatt, who is Jewish. “Regardless of how or why the dinner happened, haters like Fuentes and West should not be given a platform or a seat at the table by anyone.”
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, reacting to news of the meeting, told CNN on Monday that Fuentes “is a purveyor and distributor of an evil, poison” and added of West: “I don’t know him, but the guy has some issues.”
Asked if Trump should impeach Fuentes, Rubio said: “I hope he does. Because I know he’s not anti-Semitic. I can tell you that for the fact that Trump is not, but this guy (Fuentes) is evil. And this guy is just an ugly, disgusting person. He’s a clown ass.”
Meanwhile, Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney slammed Trump for hosting the group.
“You know, I think it’s disgusting to invite people like him to meet with a former president of the United States. I think there is — it’s been clear that there is no bottom to the extent to which President Trump will degrade himself and the nation,” Romney said.
When asked if Trump should apologize, Romney said: “He doesn’t. He never sees anything wrong with anything he does, so that’s typical of his approach, which is to either say it was funny or say he didn’t know what was going on. But that doesn’t fly, obviously. This is something that degrades him frankly, to do what he has done. And it is something that diminishes the country as well. It’s very sad.”
On Sunday, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson called the meeting with the two men “very troubling” and “empowering” about extremism.
GOP governor calls Trump’s dinner with Holocaust denier and Kanye West ‘very troubling’
“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader who sets an example for the country or the party to meet with (an) avowed racist or anti-Semite. And so it’s very troubling and it shouldn’t happen and we need to avoid that kind of empowerment of extremists,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “You want to reduce their power, not empower them. Stay away from it.”
Hutchinson, who is term-limited and steps down in January, is currently considering a 2024 White House bid.
CNN previously reported that Trump was engaged to Fuentes and found him “very interesting” during the dinner, according to a source familiar with the matter, particularly Fuentes’ ability to rattle off statistics and data and his familiarity with his world Trump. At one point during the dinner, Trump said he “liked” Fuentes.
Fuentes has been labeled a white supremacist by the Anti-Defamation League and has been banned from most major social media platforms for his white nationalist rhetoric. Fuentes was present at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and promoted Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. West became embroiled in his own controversy after repeating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and making other offensive claims last month.
Trump acknowledged the dinner in a post on Truth Social on Friday, writing: “Last week, Kanye West invited me to dinner at Mar-a-Lago. A little later, he showed up unexpectedly with three of his friends, about whom I knew nothing. We had dinner on Tuesday night with many members present on the back patio. Dinner was quick and hassle free. Then they left for the airport.”
Trump later reiterated Friday that he “didn’t know” Fuentes and had offered West business and political advice.
This story has been updated with additional details.
