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Trump’s dinner leaves a bad taste

MIAMI — Two weeks after feting Donald Trump as America’s most pro-Israel president ever, the Zionist Organization of America had harsh words for the man who aspires to return to the White House.

Sen. Mitch McConnell discusses Trump’s dinner with West and Fuentes at the US Capitol, Nov. 29, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“ZOA deplores the fact that President Trump had a friendly dinner with such vile anti-Semites,” ZOA said Sunday, Nov. 27, in a news release.

“His dining with Jew-haters helps legitimize and mainstream anti-Semitism and must be condemned by everyone.”

The group was referring to Trump’s dinner last week with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West who came out as an anti-Semite in recent weeks, and Nick Fuentes, the right-wing provocateur and Holocaust denier.

Trump hosted the pair at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, on Nov. 22.

A host of figures denounced Trump for meeting with the two men.

Among Jews, the criticism has come not only from Trump’s longtime detractors but from some of his biggest fans.

“To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this,” David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, said Nov. 25 on Twitter. “Even a social visit from an anti-Semite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable.”

Friedman is rarely anything but effusive in praising Trump, whom he once said would join the “small cadre of Israeli heroes” for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights and exiting the Iran nuclear deal, among other measures.

Last week, he tweeted to Trump: “I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”

Trump for his part said in statements on his Truth Social social media site that he hoped to assist Ye, whom he described as “troubled,” and that he did not know who Fuentes was. (Ye said he had come to Mar-a-Lago to ask Trump to be his running mate in his own nascent campaign.)

“We got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism and I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson,’” Trump said of Ye, referring to a Fox News opinion show hosted by Carlson. “Why wouldn’t I agree to meet? Also, I didn’t know Nick Fuentes.”

Trump’s contention that he did not know Fuentes raised eyebrows for some. Fuentes is the founder of a white nationalist group called America First.

He was a leading organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rallies organized by Trump supporters to try to overturn the 2020 election; he was also present at the rally that Trump addressed preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.

Fuentes, who routinely rails against Jews on his livestream, also attended the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and more recently has grown close to far-right lawmakers in Trump’s party, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia and Rep. Paul Gosar in Arizona.

Those who took Trump at his word that he did not previously know Fuentes still said that was little excuse for dining with him.

“A good way not to accidentally dine with a vile racist and anti-Semite you don’t know is not to dine with a vile racist and anti-Semite you do know,” the Jewish right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro tweeted on Sunday.

(Shapiro’s tweet kicked off a heated exchange with Ye, who recently returned to Twitter.)

Reaction to the dinner kept Trump in the spotlight over the course of a holiday weekend, a double-edged sword for the first Republican to declare a 2024 presidential campaign. One Trump advisor told NBC News that the event was a “nightmare” for the campaign.

Also condemning the meeting were Jewish organizations that have not hesitated to criticize Trump in the past, including the American Jewish Committee, the Reform movement of Judaism and the ADL.

The Biden White House condemned the incident. “Bigotry, hate, and anti-Semitism have absolutely no place in America, including at Mar-a-Lago,” its statement said.

“Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned.” (Asked to comment on Trump saying he didn’t know Fuentes, Biden himself told a reporter, “You don’t want to hear what I think.”)

The White House’s statement did not name Trump, nor did statements from many Republicans, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, at whose annual conference Trump spoke last week. The group did not initiate a statement, but, in response to reporters’ queries, released one.

“We strongly condemn the virulent anti-Semitism of Kanye West and Nick Fuentes and call on all political leaders to reject their messages of hate and refuse to meet with them,” said the statement, first solicited by The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. The RJC and its CEO, Matt Brooks, retweeted Haberman.

Why the RJC would not name Trump drew follow-up questions from reporters, including Haberman, as well as a barrage of criticism on social media.

Brooks, apparently stung, called such queries “dumb and short-sighted” on Sunday morning and said on Twitter by way of explanation, “We didn’t mention Trump in our RJC statement even though it’s obviously in response to his meeting because we wanted it to be a warning to ALL Republicans. Duh!”

Max Miller, a Jewish Republican just elected to Congress from Ohio, also did not name Trump and instead appealed to Ye, who at least until recently had become cherished on the right as a black Christian conservative, to make a course correction.

“Nick Fuentes is unquestionably an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. His brand of hate has no place in our public discourse,” Miller said on Twitter. Ye “doesn’t need to keep walking this path. Letting people like Nick Fuentes into his life is a mistake.”

Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who were both top advisers to Trump when he was president, issued no comment.

Lee Zeldin, the Jewish Republican New York congressman seen as having a future in the GOP leadership after performing more strongly than expected in a failed bid to be elected governor of a Democratic state, also did not issue a statement.

Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman known for her closeness to the former president, like the RJC, replied only when asked by a reporter — in her case, from Bloomberg.

“As I had repeatedly said, white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech, and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party,” McDaniel said.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter, “Anti-Semitism is a cancer. As Secretary, I fought to ban funding for anti-Semitic groups that pushed BDS. We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

With his capacity for lashing out at critics, taking on Trump directly is seen as a fool’s game by many in the party.

Some Republicans, including Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, denounced Trump by name.

“This is just awful, unacceptable conduct from anyone, but most particularly from a former President and current candidate,” Christie tweeted on Nov. 25.




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