The fallout from former President Donald Trump’s dinner with Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes has apparently resulted in new restrictions on who can meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks that’s a great idea.
That’s the same Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who spoke at a conference Fuentes organized earlier this year.
After Trump’s dinner with Ye, Fuentes, and former Trump campaign staffer Karen Giorno at Mar-a-Lago, the former president was slammed by GOP rivals, and even some allies, for entertaining two well-known antisemites. Trump has said he didn’t know who Fuentes was—though at first he reportedly shied away from denouncing Fuentes for fear of angering his base.
“I had never heard of [Fuentes],” Trump told Fox News Tuesday. “I had no idea what his views were, and they weren’t expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn’t have been accepted.”
As a result of the backlash, the Trump campaign is apparently putting “new protocols in place” to ensure that the people who meet with the former president are vetted, and will make sure a senior campaign official is with him at all times, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Greene is a prominent Trump ally who has already endorsed his third run for president, which Trump announced earlier this month almost immediately after the Republicans’ less-than-stellar performance in the midterms. Greene praised the new protocols at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday, according to Semafor.
“My understanding is they’re making big changes over who can come in and the vetting process, which I think is smart,” Greene told reporters.
But earlier this year, Fuentes cleared whatever vetting process Greene has, when she and Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona spoke at Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), the far-right counter-programming to the already right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In fact, Fuentes introduced her before her speech.
After criticism from Republicans including Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for her appearance at AFPAC in February, Greene claimed that she didn’t know Fuentes. And on Tuesday, Greene denounced Fuentes while shirking responsibility for boosting his profile.
“Of course I denounce Nick Fuentes and his racists [sic] anti-semitic ideology,” Greene said in a tweet responding to a CNN reporter. “I can’t comprehend why the media is obsessed with him.”
GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the likely next Speaker of the House, said Tuesday that “no one should be spending time with Nick Fuentes,” and claimed Trump “came out four times and condemned him.”
This was not true; Trump’s comments to Fox News, which were published after McCarthy claimed Trump had condemned him, were the first time Trump had even lightly condemned Fuentes.
Trump, for his part, excused his dinner with antisemites by saying he was pro-Israel during his presidency. “I gave [Israel] the embassy in Jerusalem,” Trump told Fox News, referring to his controversial decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel-Aviv and acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“There’s nobody that has proven to be more of a friend of Israel than Donald Trump,” Trump told Fox News.
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