Did Kanye punk Trump? NBC reports he was ‘ambushed’ into dinner with Nick Fuentes
‘It was a setup,’ an unnamed source says in an account of what went down at Mar-a-Lago
Kanye West embraces Donald Trump in the White House’s Oval Office in 2018. Photo by Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images
By Beth Harpaz November 30, 2022
Donald Trump was “ambushed” by Kanye West and alt-right pundit Milo Yiannopoulos into having dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, according to an account of the dinner by NBC News.
“Trump was totally blindsided,” an unnamed source described as a Trump “confidant” told NBC. “It was a setup.”
Trump had arranged to dine with West, who has changed his legal name to Ye, on Nov. 22 at Mar-a-Lago because he thought “it would be fun” for the club’s members, NBC reported, quoting an unnamed source also described as a “confidant.”
Report: Fuentes got in with no ID
When West arrived in a car with Fuentes, they were waved in by security even though Fuentes was not on the guest list and did not show an ID, according to an Associated Press story.
Trump was supposed to meet with West in the club library, the AP said, but instead Trump headed to the club’s public patio dining area.
Fuentes told NBC that everyone in the dining room clapped as Trump entered. “He greeted us, and he invited Ye into dinner and Ye said that he wanted to bring us with him to the table,” Fuentes said.
NBC quoted Yiannopoulos as claiming that he was “the architect” of the dinner plan. Yiannopoulos said he had enlisted a 2016 Trump campaign adviser, Karen Giorno, to drive West and Fuentes to Mar-a-Lago. Giorno then became “an accidental member” of the dinner party, along with a fourth person at the table identified as a parent of a student from West’s now-closed private school in California, Donda Academy.
“The master troll got trolled,” an unnamed source described as a “longtime Trump adviser” told NBC. “Kanye punked Trump.”
Trump later told Fox News Digital that he had “never heard of” Fuentes: “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.” But NBC said others at “the crowded members-only club figured out his identity.”
A West-Trump ticket?
NBC reported that Trump became angry as West criticized him for doing too little to pay legal bills for those arrested in the Jan. 6 riots. West informed Trump of his own plan to run for presidency, and suggested that Trump be his running mate. Trump, in turn, attacked West’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
Fuentes said he praised Trump as “my hero” but told NBC that he warned the former president at the dinner that he might not win in 2024.
Yiannopoulos told NBC that he arranged the dinner “just to make Trump’s life miserable,” knowing that news of the dinner would leak. Yiannopoulos also said he “wanted to show Trump the kind of talent that he’s missing out on by allowing his terrible handlers to dictate who he can and can’t hang out with.”
“He has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most,” Yiannopoulos said.
Correction: This article has been corrected to show that Fuentes, not West, was reportedly admitted with no ID.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
