Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes has turned on Donald Trump just days after attending dinner with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
In a series of Telegram posts, Fuentes called for a new far-right candidate to "outflank" Trump in 2024 as he questioned what "Christian Americans" would get out of a new Trump White House.
Fuentes, who has a disdain for mainstream Republicans, was brought as a guest of rapper Kanye West—now known as Ye—to a dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday night.
But 24-year-old Fuentes, a vocal supporter of the MAGA movement, has now turned on his former hero. He said: "Conservative media speculates that Ye and I are being used to hurt Trump. It is the other way around.
"Trump and MTG (Marjorie Taylor Green) are being used as bait to lure the base back into supporting people like Kevin McCarthy, Ronna McDaniel, and Rick Grenell. I didn't leave the MAGA movement. The MAGA movement left me."
He continued: "What are Christian Americans going to get out of a McCarthy speakership or new Trump White House? Lower gas prices? Reduce the corporate tax rate?
"Years will pass us by as things remain fundamentally the same. We must dream bigger. There's only one guy talking about how the aspirations of the Trump movement have been hijacked by people like (Jared) Kushner."
In a separate post, Fuentes claimed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a "moderate" and pushed for a far-right alternative to him and Trump.
He added: "When I say that Trump vs DeSantis is the wrong 'dialectic' (discussion with two more opposing opinions), I mean that they are both inferior to the campaign that Trump ran in 2016.
"DeSantis is a moderate and he would moderate Trump: lose-lose. We need Trump and a new candidate who will outflank him on his right."
Fuentes gained notoriety after he attended the white nationalist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and has built a far-right platform via his America First livestream show.
He has claimed not to be a racist on numerous occasions but has openly said the N-word on his show, expressed doubts that the Holocaust happened and said that the U.S. is run by Jewish people, an antisemitic trope.
Fuentes was present during the January 6 riot at the Capitol in January 2021 and was subpoenaed by the Select Committee investigating the event.
Trump has claimed he did not know Fuentes during his meeting with Ye, who has also made antisemitic remarks, but stopped short of denouncing the white nationalist.
In a Friday Truth Social post, Trump said: "Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was asking me for advice concerning some of his difficulties, in particular having to do with his business.
"We also discussed, to a lesser extent, politics, where I told him he should definitely not run for President," Trump continued. "Anyway, we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism [and] I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on 'Tucker Carlson. Also, I didn't know Nick Fuentes."
Liora Rez, Executive Director of StopAntisemitism, told Newsweek: "Whether Mr. Trump knew who Nick Fuentes was at Mar-a-Lago when they met this past week or not, he knows now, and the Former President needs to make a statement to clarify his relationship with Fuentes, a man who received a January 6th subpoena.
"Kanye West, on the other hand, is grasping for straws trying to stay relevant. Seeing him traipse around with a white nationalist Holocaust denier is a pathetic publicity stunt."
Newsweek has contacted a Trump representative for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Anders Anglesey is a U.S. News Reporter based in London, U.K., covering crime, politics, online extremism and trending stories. Anders ... Read more
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