President Donald Trump said there is no room for antisemitism in the Republican Party during an interview with The New York Times published Monday, adding that the GOP and the MAGA movement don’t need people with antisemitic views.
Trump was asked by the Times' Tyler Pager about people in the movement who have not condemned antisemitic views from some on the right and whether there was room for antisemitism in the party.
"No, I don’t. I think we don’t need them. I think we don’t like them," Trump said.
Asked whether he would condemn those views, Trump said yes.
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"Certainly. Look, if you talk about the antisemitic views, there’s been nobody better for us. As an example, I just got the Israel award, which is the biggest award they give. It was just given to me — first time it was ever given to anybody outside of Israel," he said.
When asked about specific figures such as Nick Fuentes, a White nationalist, Trump said he didn’t know him, despite having had dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
"I had dinner with him, one time, where he came as a guest of Kanye West. I didn’t know who he was bringing. He said, 'Do you mind if I bring a friend?' I said, 'I don’t care.' And it was Nick Fuentes? I don’t know Nick Fuentes," Trump said.
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Fuentes has praised Hitler as "cool" and has attacked Vice President JD Vance’s wife, as well as Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, using slurs.
Fuentes' remarks came after Ramaswamy criticism of the Holocaust denier at a Turning Point USA event in December.
"If you believe, and you will forgive me for giving you an exact quote from our online commentator, Nick Fuentes. If you believe that Hitler was pretty f------ cool, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement. You can debate foreign aid, Israel all you want. That's fine. That's fair. But you have no place with that level of hatred," Ramaswamy said.
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Trump later said he believes Republicans should condemn figures who promote antisemitism and invoked his daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner.
"Well, I’ll tell you what. From my own personal standpoint, absolutely, because I condemn. I have a daughter who’s married to a Jewish person. My daughter happens to be Jewish, beautiful, three grandchildren are Jewish. I’m very proud of them. I’m very proud of the whole, that whole family. I am the least antisemitic person probably there is anywhere in the world," he said.
