Trump, Kanye joined by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago
Former President Donald Trump acknowledged Friday that he hosted white nationalist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — but insisted he only did so because Kanye West brought the Holocaust denier without notice.
Fuentes, 24, attended racist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and in 2019 sparked outrage by saying “the math doesn’t seem to add up” for the widely cited figure of 6 million Jewish Holocaust deaths, though he later claimed he was only trying to be humorous.
“Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago,” the 76-year-old Trump said in a statement emailed to The Post. “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.”
The ex-president sought to distance himself from Fuentes after West claimed in a video posted Thursday that “Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes.”
Trump launched his third presidential campaign on Nov. 15 and met with West, 45, who also purports to be a 2024 presidential candidate, as the rapper loses lucrative business relationships — and his status as a billionaire — as a result of a series of bizarre anti-Jewish remarks.
West recently knocked “Jewish business people” and wrote he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
After dining at Mar-a-Lago, West said he offered Trump the chance to be his vice presidential running mate. Trump refused and shouted that the rapper was destined to lose, West said.
West received just 70,000 votes with a long-shot 2020 campaign for the presidency, which was suspected of being a sly effort to aid Trump by giving disaffected young and black voters an option other than Democratic nominee Joe Biden. West missed filing deadlines in some of the key swing states.
Fuentes, who also is a figure of intrigue in the events leading up to last year’s Capitol riot that disrupted certification of Biden’s victory, was spotted traveling with West during his visit to see Trump.
Fuentes was permanently suspended last year from the social media network GETTR, which is run by former Trump spokesman Jason Miller, but later became a verified user on Trump’s own Truth Social platform.
The Israel Heritage Foundation, a US-based group founded in the 1970s by Holocaust survivors, said Friday, “We… condemn & ask former President Trump to apologize, for having dinner with people who are antisemitic, Jew haters & deny the holocaust!”
Fuentes’ history of shocking anti-Jewish remarks include saying this year that “Jews stood in the way” of the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which ultimately occurred in June. In a video published about five years ago, Fuentes said he “absolutely” was harmed by Jews in his daily life.
Trump himself faced accusations recently of being insensitive to Jewish Americans.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Trump of being “anti-Semitic” last month when he wrote on Truth Social: “No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story – Highest approval rating in the World, could easily be P.M.! U.S. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!”
Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, who became Trump’s senior adviser in the West Wing, and the ex-president’s three grandchildren by the couple are Jewish.
As president, Trump was staunchly pro-Israel, including recognizing the disputed Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Kushner-led efforts result in five Muslim countries establishing diplomatic relationships with Israel.