After facing criticism for a meeting with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, at Mar-a-Lago, the former president Donald Trump labeled him a "very damaged man."
Trump said in a message posted on Saturday to his Truth Social account: "So I help a seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black, Ye (Kanye West), who has been decimated in his business and pretty much everything else, and who has always been good to me, by allowing his request for a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, alone, so that I can give him very much needed 'advice' "He arrives with three people—two of whom I didn't know—and one of them is a political figure I haven't seen in a long time. I advised him against running for office because it would be a complete waste of time. Fake News has gone NUTS!"
Several prominent Jewish figures have criticized the former president for hosting the meeting at his Palm Beach, Florida estate, including David Friedman, who served as Trump's U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2017 to 2021.
Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, also attended the dinner.
Friedman said that, like former President Barack Obama's association with anti-Semites Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright, Ye and Fuentes' visit with Trump was "unacceptable."
Meanwhile, in his first 2024 presidential campaign video, Ye gave a "Mar-a-Lago debrief" from his Los Angeles headquarters, revealing that "I think the thing that Trump was most perturbed about was me asking him to be my vice president." Ye claimed that Trump was also "caught off guard" by the fact that he "walked in with intelligence."
"So, Trump is very impressed with Nick Fuentes," Ye continued. "And, unlike so many of the lawyers and so many people he was left with on his 2020 campaign, Nick Fuentes is actually a loyalist."
Ye stated that he asked the former president, "as someone who loves Trump," why he did not release more of the Jan. 6 protesters. However, according to the rapper, Trump made some "mob-esque" excuse.
