Washington, D.C. – Former President Trump sent a video to a fundraiser for an organization that supports the families of insurrectionists facing charges for the violent attack on January 6th, which Trump incited in order to overturn the result of an election he lost. This comes less than a week after Trump spent his Thanksgiving with Ye, whose antisemitism has become so virulent he actually got re-banned from Elon Musk’s Twitter, and Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and Stop the Steal organizer.
“Trump isn’t even trying to hide his violent extremism anymore,” said Defend Democracy Project Communications Director Nicole Haley. “He’s celebrating those who he worked with and inspired to bring democracy to its knees. After planning and promoting the violent attack on our country to change the results of an election he knew he lost, he incited them to attack the Capitol. Even while the attack was ongoing, he expressed sympathy for the attackers. From spending his Thanksgiving with avowed white supremacists and antisemites to expressing support for violent criminals, Trump’s extremism is on display for everyone to see.”
Below, headlines from Trump’s recent extremism:
Washington Post: Trump Expresses Solidarity With Jan. 6 Rioters Who Stormed The Capitol. “Former president Donald Trump expressed solidarity with the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, sending a video of support to a fundraising event Thursday night hosted by a group called the Patriot Freedom Project that is supporting families of those being prosecuted by the government. ‘People have been treated unconstitutionally, in my opinion, and very, very unfairly, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,’ he said in the video, which appeared to have been shot at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. […] The Patriot Freedom Project advertises itself as ‘a non-profit organization providing legal, financial, mental-health, and spiritual support for individuals and their families — including young children — who are suffering at the hands of a weaponized justice system.’ Trump repeatedly has made clear that he stands with the mob that stormed the Capitol to stop Congress from counting the electoral votes for Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election. In September, Trump said he would issue full pardons and a government apology to the rioters, some of whom violently attacked law enforcement to stop the democratic transfer of power. ‘I mean full pardons with an apology to many,’ he told conservative radio host Wendy Bell. Such a move would be contingent on whether Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.” [Washington Post, 12/2/22]
New York Times: Trump Embraces Extremism as He Seeks to Reclaim Office. “Former President Donald J. Trump once again made clear on Thursday night exactly where he stands in the conflict between the American justice system and the mob that ransacked the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power nearly two years ago. He stands with the mob. Mr. Trump sent a video statement of support to a fund-raiser hosted by a group calling itself the Patriot Freedom Project on behalf of families of those charged with attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. ‘People have been treated unconstitutionally, in my opinion, and very, very unfairly, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,’ he said. The country, he warned, ‘is going communist.’ The video underscored just how much the former president has aligned himself with forces that used to be outside the mainstream of American politics as he seeks to reclaim the White House through a rematch with President Biden in 2024. With the Justice Department targeting him as well as some of his violent allies, Mr. Trump’s antigovernment jeremiads lately sound like those once relegated to the outer edges of the political spectrum. He has embraced extremist elements in American society even more unabashedly than in the past. The video comes as Mr. Trump has been using music sounding like a QAnon theme song at recent rallies and hosting for dinner Kanye West, a rap star under fire for antisemitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, a prominent white supremacist.” [New York Times, 12/1/22]
The Boston Globe: Trump’s Third Presidential Run Goes All-In On Extremism As His MAGA Allies’ Power Grows In The House. “Two weeks into his third presidential campaign, former president Donald Trump has made one thing clear: The extremist fringe that was always part of his base is moving to center stage. There was his shocking dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week with the white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper better known as Kanye West who has made a series of antisemitic statements. Trump also reposted memes from QAnon conspiracy-mongers on one of his social media accounts, an increasingly common occurrence. ‘It’s not a flirtation, it’s a cohabitation,’ said Tim O’Brien, a biographer of the former president. ‘If the only difference is he’s now dining with them and in the past he’s refused to denounce them . . . he’s just more comfortable taking it all the way.’ The shift was more subtle but evident at his campaign announcement earlier this month. Even as Trump delivered a kickoff speech that hewed faithfully to the teleprompter, his cheering audience was dotted with supporters who had rallied on his behalf at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to Politico — people who, just like Fuentes and Ye, had been welcomed onto the grounds of his private club.’” [The Boston Globe, 11/30/22]
The Seattle Times: Trump Embraces Extremism As He Seeks To Reclaim Office. “The conviction of the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia this week placed a president at the spiritual heart of a seditious conspiracy to illegitimately keep power in a way that is unparalleled in American history. The guilty verdict against Stewart Rhodes, head of the militia, and one of his subordinates effectively established that there was an illegal plot to keep President Donald Trump in power despite his defeat in the 2020 election, whether Trump was directly involved or simply inspired it through the lies he spread. […] But if nothing else, the trial made clear that this was more than a peaceful protest that simply got out of hand. It also underscored how much Trump has aligned himself with forces that used to be outside the mainstream of American politics as he seeks to reclaim his office through a rematch with President Joe Biden in 2024.” [The Seattle Times, 12/1/22]
Slate: Trump Has Been Pushed Back to the White Supremacist Fringe. Is That a Problem for Him? “Donald Trump is having a throwback Is Donald Trump a White Supremacist? news cycle because he ate dinner with Ye (the former Kanye West) and a white supremacist named Nick Fuentes. […] Trump was involved in these kinds of stories frequently during his campaign and in the early days of his presidency—you can read about some of them here. From David Duke’s endorsement of his campaign to his comments about the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, each played out in largely the same fashion. Trump would meet with—or retweet or compliment or refuse to “denounce”—a white supremacist or antisemite who’d gotten excited about the racist tinges, overtones, and outright explicit messaging of Trump’s campaign or presidency; the press would push him on it and ask other Republicans about it; some number of them would say they could no longer support Trump, or “deplored” what he had done, or whatever; his approval rating or polls would suffer, but only a small amount, only for a short period, and not at all among Republicans.” [Slate, 11/29/22]
Rolling Stone: How Trump Got Trolled by a Couple of Fascists. “In a Truth Social post, Trump said that he met with West in order to “help” him as he’s “been decimated in his business and virtually everything else,” and that West “has always been good to me.” Of course, Trump did not acknowledge West’s recent rash of antisemitism. Yet the dinner soon turned into a public circus with the unexpected arrival of white supremacist and Holocaust-denier, Nick Fuentes, who tagged along with West and his other dinner guest, alt-right commentator, Milo Yiannopoulos. [Rolling Stone, 11/29/22]
Slate: How Donald Trump Excuses His Bigotry. “Donald Trump, who had dinner and fun times last week with virulent antisemite Kanye West (now known as Ye) and white-supremacist-slash-Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes, initially defended himself by claiming that he had no idea who Fuentes was. Posting on his own network, Truth Social, as the firestorm began to build over Thanksgiving weekend, the former president defended the dinner by explaining that as it occurred, Ye ‘expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.’ Why wouldn’t I agree to meet? Also, I didn’t know Nick Fuentes.’ […] The problem with the ‘I didn’t know’ defense, which Trump has never stopped deploying to cover his own worst behaviors, is that it is wildly contagious…Many other Trumpists, including those confronted with racist and offensive Trump tweets and comments, similarly claimed not to know about them at all. As [Masha] Gessen observed at the time, ‘The ignorance defense is not new. The phrase ‘I didn’t know’ might be as good a summary of the testimonies of defendants at the Nuremberg trials as is the better-known ‘I was just following orders.’’” [Slate, 11/30/22]
CNBC: McConnell Suggests Trump Is ‘Highly Unlikely’ To Win Presidential Election Due To Ye, Fuentes Dinner. “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Tuesday that Donald Trump is “highly unlikely” to regain the presidency as a result of his recent dinner with the rapper now known as Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump has been condemned for dining with both men, who have espoused anti-Semitic beliefs, at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, last week. [CNBC, 11/29/22]
NPR: Republican Leaders Denounce Trump’s Dinner With White Nationalist Nick Fuentes. “House and Senate Republicans are speaking out against former President Donald Trump’s dinner last week with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. ‘There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy,’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. ‘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.’ Earlier in the day, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denounced Fuentes, who is labeled as a white supremacist pundit and organizer by the Anti-Defamation League, in language similar to McConnell’s, though he stopped short of condemning the former president.” [NPR, 11/29/22]
The Atlantic: The GOP Can’t Hide From Extremism. “The role of extremist white nationalists in the GOP may be approaching an inflection point. The backlash against former President Donald Trump’s meeting with Nick Fuentes, an avowed racist, anti-Semite, and Christian nationalist, has compelled more Republican officeholders than at any point since the Charlottesville riot in 2017 to publicly condemn those extremist views. Yet few GOP officials have criticized the former president personally—much less declared that Trump’s meeting with Fuentes and Ye, the rapper (formerly known as Kanye West) who has become a geyser of anti-Semitic bile, renders him unfit to serve as president again. […] Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump who focused on domestic extremism, told me she believes the backlash—however belated—combined with the GOP’s disappointing performance in last month’s midterm elections, could mark a turning point. ‘I think we are going to be playing footsie with fascism and authoritarianism and extremism for a while,’ because it helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 and sustain his support thereafter, she said.” [The Atlantic, 12/2/22
Salon: Christian Nationalism’s White Supremacy Crisis: Bitter Battle On The Far Right. “Donald Trump’s presidency and the Jan. 6 insurrection turned a national spotlight on Christian nationalism as one of the chief ideologies that enabled both. […] But the attention soon sparked a backlash, and the gradual-then-sudden drive for right-wing Christians to claim the label as a badge of honor. That was visible at the National Conservatism conference this September, in religious and political leaders from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Southern Baptist Albert Mohler embracing the term and in people like former Trump staffer William Wolfe declaring that while ‘Cynical, secular, & anti-God’ progressives had tried to use ‘Christian nationalism’ as a ‘slur’ to demonize the right, they had instead transformed the label ‘into a rallying cry for a movement.’” [Salon, 12/2/22]
Vox: The Deep Roots Of Antisemitism’s Resurgence In America. “Donald Trump’s weekend dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes — two figures who have become the face of modern-day antisemitism in America — has shocked the political world. For Jews, the dinner was more than simply shocking: It was a reminder of an old and very ugly history of influential Americans mainstreaming antisemitism… That Trump sat down with West and Fuentes should not be surprising, his own Jewish family notwithstanding. He has regularly deployed antisemitic rhetoric during his time in public life, and become even more willing to directly engage with his more extreme followers since leaving office (by, for example, regularly promoting QAnon content on his Truth Social website). Hosting West and Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago is the logical extension of what he’s been doing since the beginning of his political career.” [Vox, 12/1/22]
