Former President Donald Trump purportedly ignored advice from his consultants not to meet with rapper Kanye West for dinner in what some in Trumpworld are calling a “setup,” according to a November 29 NBC News report.
The report stated that the dinner was supposed to be “private and uneventful” and that Trump thought West, who has become embroiled in controversy following his myriad antisemitic remarks, “needed his counsel.” Additionally, Trump thought that the Mar-a-Lago members would enjoy seeing the rapper. Trump agreed to allow white nationalist Nick Fuentes to attend the dinner after deferring to West on the matter.
The dinner itself consisted of West lambasting Trump because the rapper thought that Trump should be paying for the legal bills of those arrested in the January 6 storming of the Capitol. West also said that he would be running against Trump in the 2024 presidential election and that Trump should be his running mate. West’s remarks made Trump livid, per the report. Fuentes told Trump during the dinner that he initially idolized Trump, but that Trump is at risk of becoming “a scripted establishment bore,” per the NBC report.
The report stated that the man who orchestrated the dinner was Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart News editor who the report describes as a “far-right provocateur.” Yiannopoulos told NBC that he knew that word would get out that Trump met with West and Fuentes and that he wanted “to make Trump’s life miserable.” Yiannopoulos also said that he “wanted to send a message to Trump that he has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most, the people who put him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end.” The report also noted that Trump’s team is putting better vetting measures in place to ensure that Trump doesn’t meet with someone like Fuentes ever again.
Since the dinner, Trump has claimed that West is “seriously troubled” and that he didn’t know who Fuentes is prior to the dinner. Jewish groups have condemned Trump’s dinner with West and Fuentes, as have various Republican leaders, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA). The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which gave Trump an award earlier in the month, urged Trump to condemn both West and Fuentes but said he was still deserving of their award.
“He earned it and deserves it because of his fabulous, unparalleled beneficial policies toward the Jewish State of Israel and toward the Jewish people,” the ZOA said in a statement. “As we stated at the ZOA Gala, where we gave this rare award to President Trump, Donald Trump also deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his numerous great accomplishments, such as the Abraham Accords, which made the Middle East more peaceful, saved the lives of Jews and others; and combatted antisemitism in the U.S. and elsewhere.” They added that “there’s not a hint of antisemitism in President Trump’s actions or beliefs. He clearly loves Israel and the Jewish people. He made a point at the ZOA Gala this month to say that even though he hates wearing tuxedos, he decided to wear a tuxedo especially in Israel’s honor.” “ZOA can continue to appreciate President Trump’s many extraordinary pro-Israel deeds at the same time that we insist that Trump needs to condemn antisemite Kanye West and Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying white supremacist Nick Fuentes.”
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.