Trump says he ‘knew nothing about’ white supremacist Nick Fuentes before Mar-a-Lago event

Former president Donald Trump said he “knew nothing” about white supremacist Nick Fuentes before he and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, dined together at Mar-a-Lago.

The former president made a statement on his networking platform Truth Social after Axios reported that Mr Fuentes and Ye dined with Mr Trump at his Palm Beach, Florida estate.

“This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago,” he said. “Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport.”

In a second statement on Friday, Mr Trump further described the meeting, writing on Truth Social that Ye approached him “for advice concerning some of his difficulties, in particular having to do with his business.”

The ex-president added that he encouraged the rapper not to run for president and instead have his supporters “vote for TRUMP,” describing the conversation as “great.”

In the statement, Mr Trump reiterated his claim that he didn’t know who Nick Fuentes was.

Mr Fuentes is a noted white supremacist, antisemite and Holocaust denier. In addition, Ye lost business partnerships with Balenciaga and Adidas after he made a series of antisemitic comments.

On Thursday evening, Ye posted a video on Twitter discussing his meeting with the former president at Mar-a-Lago where the rapper teased his plan to run for president in 2024.

“So Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes,” Ye is seen saying “And Nick Fuentes, unlike so many of the lawyers of so many people that he was left with on his 2020 campaign, he’s actually a loyalist.”

Ye asked why Mr Trump did not “free” any of the people who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6. He also suggested Mr Trump bring back former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

“And I came to him as someone who loves Trump,and I said, ‘Go and get Cory back, go and get these people that the media tried to cancel and told you to step away from,” he said, with images of figures like Roger Stone and Alex Jones being shown at the time. In response, Mr Trump reportedly gave Ye an agreesive speech.

“He basically gives me this would-be mob-esque kind of story, talking to some kid from the Southside of Chicago trying to sound mobby or whatever,” he said. Similarly, Ye discussed how Mr Trump helped get Alice Marie Johnson out of prison. Ye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian repeatedly appealed to Mr Trump to do so.

“He goes into the story about all that he went through to get Alice Johnson out of jail and how he didn’t do it for Kim, but he did it for me,” Ye said in the video. “But then he goes on to say that, ‘Kim is a ****, you can tell her I said that’ and I was thinking like, ‘that’s the mother of my children.’”

Ye goes onto say that Christian conservatives like him want Mr Trump to act in accordance with the Bible.

The meeting comes after Mr Trump announced his intent to seek the White House once again in 2024, but also when many Republicans find themselves exhausted with him after many of the candidates he endorsed in the 2022 midterms lost their races.