Two days before Thanksgiving, former president Donald Trump had dinner with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West. Kanye had already gotten into trouble for being anti-Semitic when his Twitter account was banned on October 8th after posting an anti-Semitic tweet. Elon Musk reinstated West’s Twitter account on November 20th. However, on December 2nd, his account was banned again by Elon Musk after West posted a photo of the Star of David with a swastika inside of it. Kanye also was in an interview with Alex Jones and said during the interview, “I like Hitler,” and, “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.”

Trump defended himself by claiming he didn’t know the identity of the far-right activist Nick Fuentes who was unexpectedly brought along with the rapper. However, it is hard to believe this because of Trump’s history of anti-Semitism. One historical example is when reporters wanted to talk to him shortly after the protest in Charlottesville and Trump said; “There were some very fine people on both sides.” In 2019, Trump went on with a lot of anti-Semitic tropes in front of the Israeli American Council. He started off by saying that “some Jews don’t love Israel enough.” He then brought up a stereotype about Jewish people being greedy by saying, “A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all.”

This controversy caused a lot of Republican senators to stand up against Trump. Mitt Romney (Utah) said that “There’s no bottom to the degree in which he’s willing to degrade himself and the country, for that matter. Having dinner with those people was disgusting.” Susan Collins (Maine) said that “I condemn white supremacy and anti-Semitism. The President should never have had a meal or even a meeting with Nick Fuentes.” Bill Casady (Louisiana) said that “President Trump hosting racist antisemites for dinner encourages other racist antisemites. These attitudes are immoral and should not be entertained. This is not the Republican Party.”
Even Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) spoke out against Trump by saying, “There is no room in the Republican Party for anti-Semitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”

Personally, I feel that Trump’s anti-Semitic dinner will cause a bad thing and a good thing to happen. The bad thing is that this will cause a rise in anti-Semitism amongst Trump and Kanye supporters. However, the good thing this will cause is that a majority of the Republican party will distance themselves from Trump, hopefully making a more peaceful Republican party in the future.