Trump hosted Holocaust denier at Mar-a-Lago during Kanye West visit

Tonight we will have a new window into former President Donald Trump's willingness to associate with highly controversial figures. Just days after announcing his run for the White House in 2024. Bring on CNN's national political reporter, me from Reston. Can we have Trump hosting rapper Kanye West or Jay at Mar a Lago in Florida, as well as an outspoken Holocaust

denier

? What else do we know about this dinner? So, Alex, this started coming up on social media when Yeh was posting about his meeting with Donald Trump at Mar a Lago this week. He was seen at an airport walking through an airport with Nick Fuentes, who, as you pointed out, is a Holocaust

denier

.

He has been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for anti-Semitic comments. His white nationalist rhetoric. But Kanye basically posted a video saying that the three of them had dinner together with others at Mar a Lago. And he claimed that Trump had been impressed with Fuentes. We saw the former president reject this today on his social truth platform. And I'll just read to you what he said. He said that last week, Kanye West called me for dinner at Mar a Lago. Shortly after, he showed up unexpectedly with three of his friends about whom he knew nothing. We had dinner Tuesday night with many members present on the back patio.

Dinner was quick and uneventful. Then they went to the airport and Trump also recently posted again on Truth Social, saying there was essentially no anti-Semitism expressed at this dinner and adding that he didn't know Nick Fuentes. But of course, we've seen this pattern in the former president before, when he is associated with controversial figures and tries to distance himself from them. And, of course, in the background of all this, he is hosting a Kanye West at Mar a Lago, his private club, someone who has recently been embroiled in controversy over his own anti-Semitic comments. So it's pretty hard to imagine that the former president missed all that, Alex.

Alright, Mave, stay with us. I want to bring two others into this discussion. CNN Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy and our Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe, former FBI Deputy Director. Guys, thank you both for joining us. Oliver, let's leave aside for a second the fact that apparently people can go to dinner with a former president and he doesn't know it. But this is not Nick Fuentes, he is not just anyone. He is a well-known white nationalist Holocaust denier, perhaps to point out a pattern. Do you think Trump is trying to have it both ways? When he associates with people like Fuentes and then half-heartedly apologizes?

Yes, I think it's a stretch to say that he didn't know who he was. I mean, Nick Fuentes is a pretty prominent individual in the feverish far-right morass that Donald Trump frequents these days. That's why it's hard for me to believe that he or his advisors didn't know beforehand who he was. And I also find it hard to believe that during dinner it was not entirely clear how radical Fuentes is. I mean, this is a very vocal person when it comes to expressing extremist ideology. You know, he was there praising the Taliban, for example, for taking over Afghanistan, saying it was a positive development in the world because he sees his conservative Christian worldview as something to aspire to.

So even if he didn't know who he was before dinner, I'm sure he had a good idea of ​​who he was during dinner. And let's take Kanye West with a grain of salt. But Kanye West says he was very impressed with his views. And, you know, out of all that, he's got one of those things right: He could go on social media right now and condemn Nick Fuentes. Instead, he's actually just downplaying this dinner. So I think that says it all, right? Yes, and I should correct myself. It wasn't an apology. It was a kind of explanation.

Andrew, the former president really doesn't apologize for the danger that exists here. How concerning do you think it is that the former president is actually elevating people like this when especially this threat of domestic violent extremism that 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, the people who held and defended the kind of views that Nick Fuentes did existed in a sense in a non-existent political backwater. You couldn't go out publicly and say these kinds of things.

I mean, you might have the right to do that, but you were outed quite a bit, very quickly. The reason they're so prominent now is because people like Donald Trump and other political leaders in this country have done things like meet with people like this or respond to their invitations to speak at conferences or, you know, meet with them and accept them. . as guests to dinner at his house, the private Mar-A-Lago club. Those types 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.

Regardless, it needs that kind of highly visible validation and acceptance from the highest level of political leadership, in this case in the Republican Party. He uses it to engender new supporters, new viewers, new readers of his materials. This is how they get their opinions to a wider audience. This is how they recruit more people and followers. And that is why today we find ourselves in a situation where domestic extremist violence is at levels we have never seen before. Because these things that used to be relegated to the backwoods are now accepted and discussed directly on social media and in the mainstream media.

For people like that. Yes. It is simply about incorporating hate. It's as simple as that. Oliver, at the same time, we have, you know, Twitter, of course, taken over by Elon Musk and far-right voices have been allowed back on the platform. What's the latest there? Yeah, well Nick, French Fantasy is actually one of those people who have been banned from the platform and apparently one of those people who would be covered by this blanket amnesty that Elon Musk says will happen next week for people who don't They have broken the law but have been excluded from the platform.

So I think you may be seeing Twitter become a lot more chaotic. And you talk about people used to being confined to the 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 will allow them back on the platform and give them a voice. We only have a couple of moments left. But, Andrew, I repeat the potential dangers of these types of people being more on this more conventional platform. How worried are you about these changes? You know, all that, Alex Cohen conveys that kind of legitimacy and validation and gives them a megaphone to attract more viewers and more followers.

And you know, the snowball keeps running downhill. It is a very dangerous situation.