“CNN This Morning” host Don Lemon pushed back against a former Trump administration official during a segment on Monday about the former president’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Ye – the rapper formerly known as Kanye West – and prominent white nationalist Nick Fuentes last week.
Len Khodorkovsky, former deputy assistant secretary of state and a Jewish man who said he was the grandson of Holocaust survivors, was asked whether it was wrong for Trump to meet with the pair.
“From what I understand, President Trump said he didn’t know Nick Fuentes was coming, and Nick Fuentes himself, from what I understand, said President Trump had no idea who he was at the dinner,” Khodorkovsky said. “So I — look, let’s just call Nick Fuentes for who he is: he’s an antisemite, he’s repulsive, his views are disgusting and no one of any substance should give him any forum. It’s frankly beneath President Trump to meet with him.”
Khodorkovsky went on to argue that if they were going to talk about the “mainstreaming of antisemitism” that they would have to look “in the halls of Congress” at Democratic lawmakers such as Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But Lemon pointed out they are “not president of the United States.”
“Don’t you think the former president, considering what is happening, the investigation at Mar-a-Lago, the documents, the types of people who might have access to classified documents, beyond the antisemitism, you don’t think the former president should know who he’s meeting with and letting into his home?,” Lemon questioned.
Khodorkovsky replied that “of course” Trump should know who he is meeting with.
“It sounds like you’re making excuses for him,” Lemon interjected. “You’re saying he should know who he’s meeting and then you’re saying, ‘Well, he didn’t know.’ It sounds like you’re making excuses for him and there’s no excuses for bad behavior, there’s no excuse for antisemitism and there’s no excuse for being the former president and not knowing who you’re allowing into a place where you’ve kept classified documents.”
Khodorkovsky went on to condemn Ye’s antisemitism and say that Trump should not have met with him and Fuentes, but added that he knows the former president is not an antisemite.
“He does not need to apologize,” he said.
Khodorkovsky then emphasized the real issue of concern and focus should be the rise in antisemitism around the world and in the U.S.
“We should not give a platform to any Holocaust deniers or antisemites wherever they are,” Khodorkovsky concluded. “I don’t think that the President should have met with Kanye or his sidekick and I wish no one else will either.”
