Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., on Sunday criticized Donald Trump for eating with Ye, previously referred to as Kanye West, and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, throughout a pre-Thanksgiving dinner on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago membership in Florida final week.
“Properly, he definitely wants higher judgment in who he dines with,” Comer mentioned in an interviews on NBC Information’ “Meet the Press.” “I do know that he’s issued a press release. He mentioned he didn’t know who these folks had been.”
Pressed on whether or not he condemns Trump’s actions, Comer mentioned he wouldn’t take a gathering with “that particular person,” nor Ye.
“However that’s my opinion,” Comer mentioned.
After information broke of his dinner with Ye and Fuentes, Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign went into harm management mode. Fuentes, a far-right activist and Holocaust denier, is reportedly serving to Ye, who not too long ago misplaced main endorsements offers for making antisemitic remarks, along with his second presidential marketing campaign, in response to an individual acquainted with the dinner dialog.
In a press release posted to his Reality Social platform, the previous president claimed that Ye “unexpectedly” confirmed as much as Mar-a-Lago with “three of his associates, whom I knew nothing about” — in reference to Fuentes, former Trump 2016 marketing campaign director Karen Giorno and one other man who was a Ye affiliate, sources acquainted with the dinner informed NBC Information.
Trump, who described the dinner held on the again patio as “fast and uneventful,” is going through backlash for eating with Ye and Fuentes.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that the dinner is “very troubling, and it should not occur.”
“We have to keep away from these sorts of empowering the extremes,” Hutchinson mentioned. “And while you meet with folks, you empower. And that’s what you need to keep away from. You wish to diminish their power, not empower them. Steer clear of them.”
Hutchinson added that Trump didn’t have an “unintended assembly” with Ye: “You’ve got to be completely clear in your communication that this isn’t acceptable dogma, it’s not acceptable dialog, it’s not acceptable historical past, and you need to disavow it.”
The dinner grew heated after Ye — who introduced one other run for president in 2024 on Thursday — requested Trump to be his operating mate, the sources mentioned.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was as soon as a Trump ally, was amongst a handful of Republicans who jabbed Trump for internet hosting Fuentes.
Christie mentioned in an interview with the New York Instances, “That is simply one other instance of an terrible lack of judgment from Donald Trump, which, mixed along with his previous poor judgments, make him an untenable common election candidate for the Republican Get together in 2024.”
