Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) condemned former President Trump on Monday for hosting Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes for dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week.
“President Trump hosting racist antisemites for dinner encourages other racist antisemites. These attitudes are immoral and should not be entertained,” Cassidy tweeted Monday. “This is not the Republican Party.”
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that Ye brought Fuentes, who has been labeled a “white supremacist” by the Justice Department, to the dinner and claimed he did not know who Fuentes was. Fuentes has denied that the Holocaust took place.
“So I help a seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black, Ye (Kanye West), who has been decimated in his business and virtually everything else,” Trump wrote. “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 shows up with 3 people, two of which I didn’t know, the other a political person who I haven’t seen in years,” the former president added. “I told him don’t run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win. Fake News went CRAZY!”
Cassidy is by no means an ally of the former president, as he was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection with his actions during the course of Jan. 6, 2021.
The Louisiana Republican’s remarks likely mark the first round of criticism from Senate Republicans, who will return to the Capitol on Monday afternoon following the Thanksgiving break.
Other Republicans critical of the ex-president hosting the pair in recent days include former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.