President Joe Biden reacted to Donald Trump’s meeting with notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes and disgraced rapper Kanye “Ye” West in typical Biden fashion — with a snark and a smile on his face.
While out shopping with his family in Nantucket Saturday, reporters shouted at the president to comment on Trump hosting Ye and Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago, which has been condemned by the White House and Democrats and Republicans alike.
“You don’t want to hear what I think,” Biden told journalists in a video, which you can see below.
His comment comes after White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates’ official statement to CNN: “Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America – including at Mar-A-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned.”
Fuentes has frequently espoused hate speech on his podcast and is known as a neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier who was banned from YouTube for violating its anti-hate speech guidelines. In recent weeks, Ye has been dropped by several companies and brands because of his antisemitism. Per CNN, Fuentes attended the dinner, which took place Tuesday at Trump’s Palm Beach resort, as a guest of Ye’s, who confirmed it occurred. Others in attendance included Karen Giorno, who ran Trump’s 2016 Florida campaign, and another unidentified man.
The meeting received blowback from both sides of the aisle, with former Trump ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman blasting the visit: “To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this. Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable. I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong,” he tweeted.
For Trump, who recently announced plans to run for president in 2024, along with Ye, the meeting is a long line of kinship he’s expressed with known white nationalists, including his gracious remarks about the Charlottesville rallygoers and reticence to acknowledge knowing of and disavowing KKK leader David Duke.
“Donald Trump said he didn’t know who David Duke was. He said he doesn’t know who Nick Fuentes is. Next he’ll tell us he never heard of Adolph Hitler,” veteran actor, director and producer Rob Reiner wrote on Twitter.
View further condemnations on the meeting below:
