Trump hosts white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump pose for a photograph with Nick Fuentes at the White House in Washington on Monday. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
The president hosts a white nationalist whose rhetoric has echoes of his campaign rhetoric
President Donald Trump has invited a white nationalist to the White House. Here’s the full scoop.
At an impromptu fundraiser for a political arm of a failed 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump announced on Monday that his administration will host Nick Fuentes, an American white nationalist who has had a lot more public exposure in recent months because of Trump’s repeated public attacks on so-called “globalists.”
Fuentes wrote a book called American Renaissance about white identity in America. He often criticizes immigration, anti-white racism in law enforcement and other topics that Trump has focused on in recent days.
He has also shared video of himself discussing Trump’s criticism of NFL players who protest police violence during the national anthem, and also shared a blog post from 2017 in which he discusses white identity.
In a follow-up tweet, posted at 11:52 p.m., Trump said that Fuentes would be “welcomed” to the White House, and Trump also said he’d invite Fuentes to the Capitol next Tuesday
Trump has used the term “white nationalist” to accuse Democratic politicians of racism. At a rally in the small town of El Paso, Texas, earlier this month, for example, Trump accused Democrats of saying they stand for “violent white supremacy.”
But he seems to be using the term in a more general sense, as evidenced by a tweet sent out on Monday evening that called on his supporters to applaud the fact that “someone else” has used the term “white nationalist.”
While Trump is using the term more broadly to refer to white nationalists, he has also publicly denounced the movement. In a tweet posted Sunday evening, Trump slammed the “alt-left” and “the Fake News Media” for the role they’ve played in causing a firestorm over the term.
Trump has also repeatedly said he has “the right to use whatever terminology I want,” including the term “globalists”
