A little more than a week after he announced he's running for election again, former President Donald Trump is once again trying to defend himself after hosting a Holocaust denier at Mar a Lago for dinner.
Iaquinta has been identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist who has called for the military to be sent into a black neighborhood, and he's also demanded that Jews leave the country.
In a post last night on Truth Social, trump once again claimed he didn't know who Fuentes was but that he was brought to the dinner by rapper Kanye West, who has also had a history of making antisemitic remarks.
Trump also wrote, quote, so I help a distraught man who just happens to be black, Kanye west, who had been decimated in his business and virtually everything else, and who had always been good to me by allowing his request for a meeting at Mara Lago alone so that I can give him very much needed advice.
He shows up with three people, two of which I didn't know, the other a political person who I haven't seen in years. I told him, don't run for office. A total waste of time. Can't win. And then the rest you can read there on the screen.
Joining me now, is CNN political analyst and White House correspondent for The Grio, April Ryan, and CNN Political Commentator and Republican strategist Alice Stewart. April, let me start with you first.
I believe that was the fourth attempt by Trump to say, don't blame me, but not once has he said that he was sickened to be in the presence of a Holocaust denier, which is what any normal human being would say.
Well, you know, I talked just before this segment, I talked to Jonathan Green, Black of the AntiDefamation League, and he said he just talked about some of the things he said, but he said it's awful calling and it's totally in character for Donald Trump.
And he said he also brought up the example that he didn't know who David Duke was. So that's kind of going back to this moment. And then he also, green Glad talked about Kymy West. And the fact that he's also exhibiting racist behavior with White Lives Matter and his talk about slavery and then also his misguided mindset, if you will, on what happened to George Floyd.
So Donald Trump was in the company. That does not bode well for his attempts to endear the Jewish community, nor the black community and even the community at large, because this is viewed as racist, antisemitic, and more.
Yeah. And we're talking to Jonathan Greenblatt, by the way, from the Anti-Defamation League in our 05:00 hour, so stay tuned for that. But, Alice, part of the problem with Trump's explanation is, as ridiculous as it is, is that we've heard a version of this before, multiple times.
Let's watch. Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, okay? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy. You also had people that were very fine people on both sides.
What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name. Stand back and stand by. Alice, what did you think when you heard about this? And why are we not seeing a stampede of Republican leaders coming forward to denounce this and say, Donald Trump, is no longer a member of this party?
We just need to see something like that. Why not? I expect to see more of that. We had Arkansas governor Lisa Hutchinson on State of the Union this morning. He talked about this. He said, when you meet with people, you empower them.
And it's wrong to have people like this in your presence, in your home. And to be quite honest, Jim, you're known by the friends you keep if a friend of yours brings an anti-Semit racist to your home.
It says just as much about you as it does about them. And the fact that Donald Trump allowed this person down to Mara Lago says an awful lot about him. When you bring someone to the table, you give them a voice in the conversation.
And now this antisemite Holocaust denier has a big platform and a voice for his hatred, and that's wrong. Here's the political implication of this, Jim. You know how this works. Anyone who's seriously looking at being the Republican candidate in 2024, you're up in Ohio, you're up in Iowa, you're in New Hampshire, you're in South Carolina.
You're having dinners with pastures and farmers at the machine shed in Des Moines, Iowa, not with racists and anti-Semites in a country club down in Florida. So this, I think, will have tremendous political implications for him as we move forward because there are other options out there to think about.
And April, President Biden on Nantucket this weekend was asked about this, and you and I both know April covering the White House. Sometimes the President here a question doesn't want to answer, doesn't need to answer it.
But President Biden made this comment. Let's watch. Mr. President. April, what did you think of that? Well, you have to remember that those words still speak volumes. You don't want to know what I think.
But this president, this current president became a candidate for the Oval Office because of what happened in Charlottesville. And that clip you just played. Just played. There are very fine people on both sides.
But at the end of the day, you have a President of the United States who realize realizes that. The man who was the impetus for him to run again is doing it all over again. And this could indeed be his opponent.
So he is probably being very strategic, if I'm putting on my understanding, cap of what a president does, he's probably being very strategic at this moment as to when to talk the talk and how to talk about Donald Trump.
But also, one thing that we are forgetting in this conversation, I wonder what Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, is saying about this moment. That is one person I want to hear from as well at this moment.
Yeah, absolutely. And Alice, let's move on to something else besides you know who Twitter's new owner Elon Musk said on Friday. And this kind of goes to what you were talking about a few moments ago, that he would support Florida Governor Ron DeSantis if he were to run for president in 2024.
He commented as part of a lengthy thread about why he had decided to give Trump his Twitter account back. He's a billionaire who now owns his platform, but what impact do you think that has?
That Elon Musk and you're hearing this from other folks in the Republican Party. There's a lot of movement toward Ron DeSantis, which maybe sort of holds their placeholder for anybody but Trump.
Right? Look, one of the things that we're seeing a lot more from Republicans and Elon Musk and people with big platforms and voices is we do need to turn the page. And another thing that Musk said was that he would support someone that is more centrist and sensible, and he has expressed his concerns about the Biden administration.
So I think it's positive that you have someone with a platform like Elon Musk to encourage people, specifically, Republicans, let's find someone with a lot more sense than this. And I encourage Trump's base.
Now is a good time to listen to those voices. Here's my message to Trump's base. If you want to help Trump's legacy, you need to lock arms and line up behind someone else, someone who is more sensitive.
Interest, someone who is a rational Republican, a commonsense conservative, someone that can win a general election. Because I can tell you, Jim, and you know how this works, someone as extreme as Donald Trump an election denier cannot win a national election in the future.
And we learned that from this past midterm election. Well, he keeps losing, is a loser in 2018 and midterms there in 2020 and of course, 2022. April Musk also said that he was, quote, fine with Trump not using his restored account.
I mean, I guess we do have to remember, April, why Trump's account was shut down. It was shut down because Trump incited an insurrection on January 6. But what do you make of what Elon Musk is doing there?
Words matter. And Elon Musk has aligned himself by allowing Donald Trump to have his Twitter account back with someone who's very controversial as an investigation continues on what happened on January 6 and other issues.
But at the end of the day, Elon Musk owns Twitter like he owns Tessie. It is his entity, but it's also a decision to stay on it. There has been a change with Twitter, a noticeable will change. And the question is, how long will people stay with Twitter as these changes continue to unfold?