Trump's latest dinner guest: Nick Fuentes, white supremacist

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday had dinner with Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and racist who is one of the country's most prominent young white supremacists, at Trump's private club in Florida, advisers to Trump conceded Friday.

Also at the dinner was performer Ye, who has changed his name from Kanye West and has also been condemned for making antisemitic statements. Ye traveled to meet with Trump at the club, Mar-a-Lago, and brought Fuentes along, the advisers said.

The fourth attendee at the four-person dinner, Karen Giorno — a veteran political operative who worked on Trump's 2016 campaign as his state director in Florida — also confirmed that Fuentes was there. Attempts to reach Fuentes through an intermediary Friday were unsuccessful.

In recent years, Fuentes, 24, has developed a high profile on the far right and forged ties with such Republican lawmakers as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, largely through his leadership of an annual white supremacist event called the America First Political Action Conference.

A Holocaust denier and unabashed racist, Fuentes openly uses hateful language on his podcast, in recent weeks calling for the military to be sent into Black neighborhoods and demanding that Jews leave the country.

It is unclear how much Trump knew of Fuentes' well-documented bigotry and extremism before their dinner. In a statement, Trump said: “Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about.”

The statement said nothing about Fuentes' views. In a post later Friday on his social media website, Truth Social, Trump said that Ye “unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about.” He said the dinner took place “with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. Then they left for the airport.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, condemned Trump's meeting with Fuentes, saying that the idea that Trump “or any serious contender for higher office would meet with him and validate him by sharing a meal and spending time is appalling. And really, you can't say that you oppose hate and break bread with haters. It's that simple.”