Former Vice President Mike Pence condemned the actions of former President Donald Trump for hosting white nationalist Nick Fuentes at his home but acknowledged he doesn’t believe Trump is a racist or antisemite.
Speaking to NewsNation, Pence addressed the dinner Trump had with Ye, formerly Kanye West, and Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago residence on November 22. Pence described the dinner as “wrong,” adding Trump shouldn’t have given “a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table.”
Pence continued, admitting Trump should apologize.
The former Vice President then pointed to his recently released book “So Help Me God,” saying that he relayed in the book that Trump isn’t an antisemite, racist, or bigot.
However, he described the event as Trump demonstrating “profoundly poor judgment” and reiterated that the former President should apologize and “denounce them without qualification.”
Pence also pointed out that one of Trump’s children — Ivanka Trump — is Jewish after converting to Judaism before getting married.
Pence’s defense of Trump’s actions dates back to 2017 following a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; at that time, Pence explained Trump’s words were taken out of context.
News of the meeting — and Fuentes’ presence at the dinner — went public in an Axios report.
Since then, Trump has released several statements on Truth Social discussing the dinner in greater detail.
In one statement, Trump explained that he intended to host Ye at his Mar-a-Lago home to offer him some advice, but Ye invited three other guests without Trump’s knowledge, one of which happens to be Fuentes.
