MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire said Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that white nationalism was becoming “more central to what today’s Republican Party is about” while discussing former President Donald Trump meeting with Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski said, “Not just any dinner, dinner at Mar-a-Lago, which former President Trump calls his Florida White House, his southern White House. This is the place where classified documents were seized by the FBI that the president had taken, stolen from areas where these documents are kept in our government, office buildings, and in the White House, and brought them to Mar-a-Lago. This is where he’s having dinner now with white supremacists and antisemites.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough said, “Jonathan Lemire, he refuses any condemnation of this guy, and it’s the same thing with, you know, it’s the same thing with Kanye West, but there is a strange silence out there. Even if a guy like Mike Pompeo will condemn antisemitism, won’t say Trump’s name, afraid it say Trump’s name, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, yeah, she’s a fringe member, but she stops being a fringe member when Kevin McCarthy is striking deals with her, so he becomes Speaker of the House.”
Lemire said, “This strain of white nationalism is becoming more central to what today’s Republican Party is about. Marjorie Taylor Greene is about to become a very important member of Congress as Republicans are about to take the majority there in the House. For Trump, and his refusal to condemn the hateful rhetoric and hateful people because he doesn’t want to alienate those supporters, his ceiling as a candidate may be lower, but he’s trying to harden that floor. He’s trying to play to the lowest common denominator to try and keep some supporters in check.”
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