Top Republicans Begin to Speak Out — Cautiously — Against Trump’s Dinner With Anti-Semites

 

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Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, tore into Donald Trump on Monday, joining the growing, yet still small, backlash in GOP circles to the former president sitting down to dinner with anti-Semitism-spewing rapper Kanye West and avowed white supremacist and Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes ahead of Thanksgiving. Kemp joins Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) in condemning Trump for meeting Fuentes and declaring his ideology as anathema to the GOP.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein reached out for comment to all the major officeholders in Georgia regarding Trump’s headline-grabbing dinner, which has been roundly condemned.

“I am extremely proud that Georgia’s relationship with Israel and the Jewish community has never been stronger. Racism, antisemitism, and denial of the Holocaust have no place in the Republican Party and are completely un-American,” Kemp told Bluestein in a statement.

Bluestein also noted that Trump-backed GOP U.S. Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, who is facing Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in a run-off on Dec. 6th, has remained silent on the issue.

“I’ve asked that question: no comment from the Walker campaign,” Bluestein noted.

Kemp’s incoming lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, also condemned Fuentes, claiming he previously had no idea who he is, but added “there is absolutely no place for antisemitism of any kind and it must be strongly condemned.” Jones has been a close Trump ally and notably worked to help the former president overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, which Kemp refused to do – resulting in Trump launching a failed effort to primary Kemp and remove him from office.

Sen. Mitt Romney slammed Trump while speaking with reporters. “There is no bottom to the degree to which he’s willing to degrade himself, and the country for that matter. Having dinner with those people was disgusting,” Romney said, adding:

I voted to remove him from office twice… I don’t think he should be president of the United states. I don’t think he should be the nominee of our party in 2024. And I certainly don’t want him hanging over our party like a gargoyle.

It’s a character issue.

Louisiana’s Sen. Bill Cassidy offered a similar sentiment earlier on Monday, writing on Twitter, “President Trump hosting racist antisemites for dinner encourages other racist antisemites. These attitudes are immoral and should not be entertained. This is not the Republican Party.”

Sen. Susan Collins told reporters Monday, “I condemn white supremacy and anti-semitism. The president should never have had a meal or even a meeting with Nick Fuentes.”

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), a potential 2024 presidential rival to Trump, denounced the former president on CNN Sunday for meeting with Fuentes and West.

“I know as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas, you personally prosecuted white supremacist groups. What’s your reaction to seeing a former U.S. president associate with someone like that?” Bash asked the conservative governor.

“Well, I hope someday we won’t have to be responding to what former President Trump has said or done,” replied Hutchinson, adding:

In this instance, it’s important to respond, and as you mentioned, the last time I met with the a white supremacist, it was in an armed standoff. I had a bulletproof vest on. We arrested them, prosecuted them, sent them to prison

And so, no, I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that’s setting an example for the country or the party to meet with an avowed racist or anti-semite and so it’s very troubling and it shouldn’t happen. And we need to avoid those kinds of empowering the extremes. And when you meet with people, you empower and that’s what you have to avoid. You want to diminish their strength, not empower them, stay away from it.

Fuentes is the leader of the so-called Groyper Army and holds an annual white nationalist conference as counter-programming to CPAC. Groypers are a loose network of alt-right figures who are vocal supporters of authoritarian white nationalist ideals, often trolling mainstream conservative events to try and move conservativism more toward vehement white nationalism.

Fuentes, who has also denied the Holocaust, supports “the closure of the U.S. borders to immigrants while opposing “liberal” values such as feminism and LGBTQ+ rights. Fuentes views these societal changes as the “bastardized Jewish subversion of the American creed,” according to the ADL.

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Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing