Tonight, we are getting a new window
into former President
Donald Trump's
willingness to associate
with highly controversial figures.
Just days
after he announced his 2024 run
for the White House.
Let's bring in CNN
national political reporter,
me of Reston.
May we have
Trump hosting rapper Kanye West or Jay
at Mar
a Lago down in Florida,
as well as an outspoken Holocaust denier?
What more do we know about this dinner?
So this started bubbling up, Alex, on
social media when Yeh was was posting
about his meeting
with Donald Trump at Mar a Lago
this week.
He was spotted at an airport
walking through an airport
with Nick
Fuentes, who, as you
noted, is a Holocaust denier.
He has been condemned by the
the Anti-Defamation League
for anti-Semitic comments.
His white nationalist rhetoric.
But but Kanye basically put up a video
saying that the three of them
had had dinner
along with others at Mar a Lago.
And he claimed that
that Trump
had been impressed with Fuentes.
We saw the former
president push back on this today
on his truth social platform.
And I'll just read you what he said.
He said this past week,
Kanye West
called me to have dinner at Mar a Lago.
Shortly thereafter,
he unexpectedly showed up
with three of his friends
whom I knew nothing about.
We had dinner on Tuesday
evening with many members
present on the back patio.
The dinner was quick and uneventful.
They then left for the airport and Trump
just a short time ago, also
posted again on Truth Social,
saying that essentially
that there were no
there was no antisemitism expressed
at this dinner
and adding that he didn't know
Nick Fuentes.
But of course, we have seen this pattern
from the former president
before when he is associated
with controversial figures,
he tries to distance himself from them.
And of course,
at the bottom of all of this,
he's hosting
a Kanye
West at Mar a Lago, his private club,
someone who has recently been engulfed
in controversy
over his own anti-Semitic remarks.
So it's pretty hard to imagine
that the former president
missed all of that, Alex.
All right, Mave stay with us.
I want to bring in two others
to this discussion.
CNN senior
media reporter
Oliver Darcy
and our senior law enforcement
analyst, Andrew McCabe, the former
FBI deputy director.
Guys, thank you both for joining us.
Oliver,
let's put aside for a second
the fact that apparently people
can just show up to dinner
with a former president
and he didn't know about it.
But this isn't
Nick Fuentes isn't just anyone.
He's a very well known white nationalist
Holocaust denier
to maybe point about a pattern.
Do you think that Trump
is trying to have it both ways?
When he associates
with people like Fuentes
and then kind of puts out
a half hearted apology?
Yeah,
I think it stretches credibility to say
that he didn't know who this was.
I mean, Nick
Fuentes is a pretty prominent individual
in the far right
fever swamp that Donald Trump
frequents these days.
And so
I find it hard
to believe that he or his advisers
didn't know ahead of time
that who this was.
And I also find it hard to believe
during dinner
that it didn't become quite clear
how radical Fuentes is.
I mean, this is a very vocal person
when it comes to expressing
extremist ideology.
You know,
he was out there
praising the Taliban for instance,
for taking over Afghanistan, saying
it was a positive development
in the world
because he finds
their Christian conservative
worldview to be something that to
aspire to. So
even if he didn't know who he was
prior to dinner,
I'm sure he got a good sense
of who he was during dinner.
And take Kanye West
with a grain of salt.
But Kanye West is out there
saying that he was very impressed
with his views.
And, you know, outside of all of that,
he has one of these things right
he could get on through social right now
and condemn Nick Fuentes.
Instead, he's
really just downplaying this dinner.
So I think that kind of says
it all, doesn't it?
Yeah, and I should correct myself.
It wasn't an apology.
It was some sort of explanation.
The former president
doesn't really apologize,
Andrew, in terms of the danger here.
How worrying is it,
do you think, that
the former president
is is really elevating
people like this when
especially this threat of domestic
violent extremism we know is so high
Well, you know, it's a great question.
And I think you have to go back
a little bit
to understand that
for decades in this country,
people who held and espoused
the sorts of views that Nick Fuentes does
kind of existed
in a non-existent political backwater.
You couldn't go out publicly
and say these sorts of things.
I mean, you
could you have the right to do that,
but you were pretty,
pretty quickly denounced.
The reason they're so prominent
now is because people like Donald Trump
and other political leaders
in this country
have done things like met
with people like this
or responded to their invitations
to speak at conferences
or, you know, met with them
and accepted them as dinner
guests in their home,
the private club of Mar-A-Lago.
Those sorts of actions validate
these people and validate
their views in a way
that allows this toxic spread to grow.
And this is what people like
Nick Fuentes thrive on.
He needs
that sort of highly visible validation
and acceptance
by the absolute
highest level
of political leadership
in this case
in the Republican Party anyway.
He uses that to engender new supporters,
new viewers,
new readers of his materials.
That's how they get their views
out to a wider audience.
That's how they recruit
more people and supporters.
And that's
why we're in a situation today
where domestic extremist
violence is at levels
we have never seen before.
Because these things
that used to be relegated
to the backwaters
are now accepted and discussed
right on on social media
and on regular media.
By people like that.
Yeah. It's just mainstreaming hate.
It's as simple as that.
Oliver, at the same time,
we've got, you know, Twitter,
of course,
taken over by Elon
Musk more
the far right
voices have been allowed
back onto the platform.
What is the latest there?
Yeah, well,
Nick, French
fantasy is actually one of those people
who's been banned from the platform
and seemingly one of those people
that would be covered
under this
general amnesty
that Elon Musk says will occur next week
for people who haven't broken the law
but who have been
banned from the platform.
So I think you might be seeing Twitter
get a lot more chaotic.
And you talk about
people
used to being confined
to dark corners of the Web.
Twitter is a place, that platform,
some of those people,
and they were eventually banned.
But now it seems
that Musk is going to allow them
back onto the platform
and give them a voice.
We only have a couple of moments left.
But but Andrew, to you again
about the potential dangers
there of these types of people
being on more on
this more mainstream platform.
How worried are you about these changes?
You know,
all of that, Alex
Cohen conveys that sort of legitimacy
and validation
and gives them a megaphone
to attract more viewers and
and more supporters.
And it just you know, the snowball
continues running downhill.
It's it's
it's a very dangerous situation.