Saturday 26 November 2022 12:59 AM Trump was 'very taken' with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes during Mar-a-Lago ... trends now

Donald Trump was reportedly 'very taken' with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes during an impromptu dinner with disgraced rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago.

Sources told Axios the former president was impressed by his ability to 'rattle off statistics and recall speeches dating back to his 2016 campaign' - but he had no clue of his controversial background.

The Justice Department in a 2021 complaint referred to Fuentes, an alt-right figure, as a 'white supremacist' and 'America First' podcaster.'

In an episode of his podcast, Fuentes 'jokingly' denied the Holocaust and compared Jews who were burnt in Nazi concentration camps to cookies in an oven.

One source who spoke with NBC News told the outlet Trump was taken by Fuentes who: 'presented as statistician'.

They added: 'He was very knowledgeable of polls and Trump's campaign. Trump was very impressed but Trump didn't know who he was.' 

NBC News has since reported those close to Trump have since been thrown into a tail-spin by the fallout from the meeting, despite the former president allegedly having no prior knowledge of who Fuentes was.

'This is a f***ing nightmare,' said one longtime Trump adviser who spoke anonymously.

The source went on to say they are concerned that the meeting could impact Trump's chances at taking the Republican nomination in 2024. 

'If people are looking at [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis to run against Trump, here's another reason why,' the source said. 

On Friday, Ye also confirmed that Trump was 'impressed' with Fuentes in a video posted to Twitter.  

'So Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes, and Nick Fuentes, unlike so many of the lawyers, and so many of the people that he was left with on his 2020 campaign, he's actually a loyalist' Ye said.

In a post on Truth Social Friday evening, Trump said he didn't know Fuentes previous to the meeting, and offered an explanation on the meeting with the rapper.

'Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was asking me for advice concerning some of his difficulties, in particular having to do with his business,' Trump wrote in the post. 

'We also discussed, to a lesser extent, politics, where I told him he should definitely not run for President, 'any voters you may have should vote for TRUMP.

'Anyway, we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all the nice things he said about me on 'Tucker Carlson.' Why wouldn't I agree to meet? Also, I don't know Nick Fuentes.' 

Three different sources, two Trump advisers and one person who is not currently involved in the Trump campaign, told NBC News Friday Ye also brought Karen Giorno, who managed the Trump campaign in Florida during the 2016 election. 

The former president reportedly knew the woman by both name and sight. 

A third unknown party was also brought by the rapper, however, the identity of the person is unknown and sources said he was 'an associate' of Ye's.   

Fuentes is also helping Ye in his own 2024 presidential campaign, which is being managed by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart editor and alt-right commentator, according to the rapper. 

This comes after Ye and Fuentes showed up at Mar-a-Lago 'unexpectedly,' according to the former president. 

'This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about,' the ex-president said in an earlier post on the right-wing social media app. 

 '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.' 

West had previously revealed that Trump - who has already announced he'd be running for the White House in 2024 - rejected the rapper's request to be the ex-president's vice presidential pick. 

West has also announced he plans to run for president in 2024.  

In a two-minute campaign promo posted to Twitter Thursday, the embattled artist - who has faced backlash for his remarks disparaging Jewish people - expanded on those plans, revealing he met with Trump, 76, Wednesday to discuss them.

A day earlier, West, 45, was seen traveling with Fuentes, as he headed to  Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

In the brief clip, West offered his own account of the sit-down, which he said saw him air his presidential aspirations to the former commander-in-chief, who announced his own renewed bid for the Oval Office last week.

Titled 'Mar-a-Lago debrief,' the abrupt campaign teaser comes just days after West was spotted in Beverly Hills with the white supremacist, who has emerged as one of the leading figures of the far-right for his views on Jews and other minority groups.

The pair then traveled to Miami together, and were spotted outside the former president's Florida private club on Tuesday.

West, who was dropped by Adidas and several other companies last month for his antisemitic comments, praises Fuentes in the footage, while also criticizing Trump - who he said flat out denied his running mate request in a fit of rage.

'The thing that Trump was most perturbed about [is] me asking him to be my vice president,' Kanye said the clip posted on his recently-unlocked Twitter account on Thanksgiving night.

He continued: 'I think that was, like, lower on the list of things that caught him off guard. It was the fact that I walked in with intelligence.'

He would go on to accuse the ex-head of state of succumbing to cancel culture by firing mercurial members of his cabinet such as top aides Karen Giorno and Steve Bannon, while distancing himself from other public figures such as Fuentes due to their views.

West would go on to hail Fuentes as a Trump 'loyalist,' touting his support of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by citizens loyal to the then outgoing president.

'Nick Fuentes, unlike so many of the lawyers and some of the people [Trump] was left with on his 2020 campaign, he's actually a loyalist,' West said in the video, which featured a caption with the hashtag #YE24. 

'When all the lawyers said, 'forget it, Trump's done,' there were loyalists running up in the White House, right?' West continued, referring to the politician's unsuccessful attempts to argue his election loss to current President Joe Biden.

West proceeded to chide the president for not doing anything to help the hundreds of Americans being prosecuted for their part in the insurgence 

'Why, when you had the chance, did you not free the January 6ers?' West asked incredulously, sitting on a counter at his LA studio while speaking to an interviewer.

The rapper goes on to offer advice to Trump, telling him to 'go and get these people that the media tried to cancel' - ignoring his own recent troubles while dealing with the media and his owned failed bid for the presidency in 2020.

At that point in the bizarre campaign ad, the video flashes photos of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump ally Roger Stone, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as to signify some of the polarizing figures the ex-president has supposedly alienated.

Jones, who rose to prominence during Trump's campaign and first term in office, was recently ordered to pay a more than $1 billion to the families of the Sandy Hook victims for unfounded comments about a supposed conspiracy surrounding their children's deaths.

Eventually, West said, he pitched his presidential run to the Republican, who responded by dismissing his desires for the White House with an anecdote in which he claimed he granted clemency to former federal prisoner Alice Johnson for West, and not his estranged wife Kim Kardashian, who had campaigned for Johnson's release. 

Johnson, 67, had been convicted in 1996 for involvement in a Memphis cocaine trafficking scheme, which came with a life sentence, seen by Kardashian and other criminal justice reform advocates as much too tough for a non-violent offender.

Kardashian first came to the White House in May 2018 to tell Trump Johnson's story. The president commuted Johnson's

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