“I had dinner with a very troubled man who was asking for help,” Trump says, slamming media coverage of dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
Former president Donald Trump said that the media exaggerated the significance of him dining with rapper Kanye West and political activist Nick Fuentes, both of whom have publicly expressed antisemitic views, at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in late November.
Speaking to New York Magazine, Trump said the entire event had been blown out of proportion, and that he was unaware of West and Fuentes’ remarks regarding Jews at the time he hosted them.
“Kanye West called me up, and he wanted to know if I could meet him because he has a lot of problems. And I did that. He brought some people that I didn’t — Nick Fuentes — who I didn’t know at all. We sat down, we had a very quick meal,” Trump told New York Magazine.
“It wasn’t two hours, as somebody said. It was a very quick meal, it went very fast. It was pleasant. There was nothing said of any great import. And that was the end of that. All of a sudden, the press made a fake story out of it.”
Trump said that he had met with West because the two have a friendship stretching back several years, and that the embattled rapper had expressed he needed support.
“I had dinner with a very troubled man who was asking for help, and I didn’t know his views on Israel because I don’t study Kanye,” he said. “I didn’t know that Kanye said anything negative about Israel because it’s not exactly something that I would be in a position to know.”
The former president added that helping people in need is second nature to him, and that in this case, it had backfired and reflected poorly upon him.
“And I do that for people, sometimes at my own risk, I guess. But I do that for people. I like helping people that have difficulties in life. And I think, you know, from that standpoint, I did the right thing,” Trump said.
“I believe I am overly generous, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But sometimes it can make life a little bit more difficult.”