Former President Donald Trump has come under a barrage of criticism from Jewish supporters and former envoys over his decision to host antisemitic rapper Kanye West and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, blasted the move.
“Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable,” Friedman said in one of several tweets. “I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”
Trump’s Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt called on Trump to condemn West and Fuentes, saying the dinner “should not have happened.”
“I hope President Trump condemns Fuentes, West and their ilk for what they are — haters of Jews and haters of the foundations of the United States of America. People like Fuentes are dangerous to the United States. The President Trump that I know would recognize that and issue this condemnation,” Greenblatt wrote in an oped published in CNN.
Greenblatt noted, however, Trump’s “extremely positive record with respect to” Jews and Israel.
Elan Carr, who Trump appointed as the State Department’s antisemitism czar, expressed his disappointment over the dinner on Twitter.
“No responsible American, and certainly no former President, should be cavorting with the likes of Nick Fuentes and Kanye West,” Carr wrote.
“To placate antisemitism is to promote antisemitism. President Trump must condemn these dangerous men and their disgusting and un-American views.”
The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), an umbrella organization representing over 2000 prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbis, called on Trump to publicly and formally “repudiate the antisemitic rhetoric of two leading purveyors of antisemitism.”
The Orthodox Jewish community was largely supportive of Trump during his presidency. Orthodox Jewry tends to vote Republican, unlike the majority of American Jewry which votes Democrat.
“A former President does not enjoy the luxury of meeting over dinner with any oddball, especially when that fool is a self-declared hater,” CJV Vice President Rabbi Dov Fischer said in a statement.
“It was wrong for former President Obama to affiliate with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. It is wrong for President Biden to praise Jew-hater Rashida Tlaib and fail to exert his leadership to rein in the Jew-hatred of Ilhan Omar. And it is wrong when President Trump breaks bread with such individuals.”
CJV Southern Regional Vice President Rabbi Moshe B. Parnes said it was “contradictory” for someone “who has done so much for the State of Israel and for the Jewish community” to meet with people who have expressed “open hostility against the Jewish people.”
“Trump should have condemned West’s antisemitism before the meeting, and repeated it at the meeting, so it is past due for him to speak out. As he said himself when he introduced his Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, ‘the vile, hate-filled poison of anti-Semitism must be condemned and confronted everywhere and anywhere it appears.’”
Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) who recently gave former Trump a special award, also denounced the move.
Klein told Breitbart News Trump had “legitimized the Jew-hatred of Ye and Nick Fuentes.”