Former Vice President Mike Pence has condemned former President Donald Trump for hosting a dinner for white supremacist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West, who goes by Ye, at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Pence said the former president was “wrong.”
“President Trump was wrong to give a White nationalist, an antisemite and Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize for it,” Pence told NewsNation. “And he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.”
The former vice president added that Trump “demonstrated profoundly poor judgment in giving those individuals a seat at the table” and he does not believe the former president is “a racist or a bigot.”
Pence’s comments are the latest in a wave of criticism that erupted with many politicians across the political spectrum condemning Trump for hosting West, who has been under fire for his antisemitic remarks, and Fuentes, a white supremacist who gained national notoriety after attending the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Since the episode provoked widespread backlash, Trump issued a statement saying that he agreed to receive West, who he called a “seriously troubled man,” and he showed up with three guests. The former president said he didn’t know Fuentes, who is well-known in right-wing circles.
