Two days prior to Thanksgiving, Donald Trump planned to have dinner with an old friend: Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. He was not planning, however, for the three guests his commiserating cohort would be bringing along, or the public backlash that it would bring on his recently revealed Presidential campaign.
Almost everyone agrees that receiving uninvited dinner guests can be one of the worst experiences life has to offer--perhaps a severe lack of familiarity creates droning awkwardness for hours, or differences in things like basic human rights makes conversation impossible. But when you add the ere of celebrity to the situation, it can become a minefield to maneuver, as who you're seen with can speak volumes about your character. And, to that end, Ye really did Trump dirty when he arrived with Nick Fuentes, infamous white supremacist & anti-semite.
Since the news broke, Trump has been adamant that he didn't know of Nick Fuentes or the views that made him infamous when they broke bread together [a claim confirmed independently by Fuentes during an interview with NBC News]
“We saw everybody in the dining room get up and start applauding, and then the president entered,” Fuentes told NBC News. “He greeted us, and he invited Ye into dinner and Ye said that he wanted to bring us with him to the table. So we walked in and Ye took some pictures with some of the guests in the dining room and then we sat down at the table.”
However, despite Trump's effort for a helpful photo-op [even going as far as reserving their table specifically on the patio for maximum visual exposure, according to Fuentes], news of the candlelit, open-air dinner between the three men has proved nothing but problematic for the former President.
Regardless of whether or not Trump knew or knew-of Fuentes, his dinner guests were aware, and made aware everyone they texted and tweeted photos to, following Trump's grand entrance at 8pm [November 22, 2022]. But it's not just the knowledge of the meeting itself that has led to controversy and speculation--Ye illuminated the conversation, posting a 1:52 video to Twitter titled, "Mar-a-Lago Debrief."
Fuentes told NBC News that he praised Trump as “his [my] hero” and criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis [R-FL] for his potential GOP primary challenge to Trump; scrappily adding that he also told him to his face at the dinner that the on-time 2016-insurgent was in danger of becoming a "scripted establishment bore" who could lose in 2024. Despite this, Ye is adamant that Trump was "really impressed with Nick Fuentes."
Does anyone else smell a setup? If so, you've got a good sniffer!
Milo Yiannopoulos -- the anti-Trump, far-right provocateur who is now acting as a political adviser to Ye -- told NBC News that he was "the architect", having Fuentes travel with Ye in the hopes that he'd slip himself into the dinner arrangements with Trump. According to Yiannopoulos -- a former Breitbart editor who was banned from Twitter in 2016 for inciting a racist campaign against the comedian Leslie Jones -- the intent was for Fuentes to give Trump an unvarnished view of how a portion of his base views his candidacy.
Get more details on Ye's "Mar-a-Lago Debrief" video and read the transcript by clicking here.
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