Every now and then Donald Trump that worries even his die hards. Think the Access Hollywood tape or him attempting to overthrow democracy on Jan. 6. Nothing much usually comes from them; the GOP expresses horror, then forgives him. That will probably be what happens with his latest scandal: having Thanksgiving dinner with two anti-Semites, one of them also a white nationalist Holocaust denying incel. But for now, even far right hellsites are mad at him, which means he’s still in the midst of one of his patented frothing meltdowns.
Since the story broke, Trump has struggled to put out the fire. First he claimed — not very convincingly — that he had no idea who Nick Fuentes, the worst of his dinner companions, was. Now he’s saying he was just trying to help one of his other guests, newly anti-Semitic Kanye West.
“So I help a seriously troubled man, who just happens…” pic.twitter.com/xLn5t8TFpy
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) November 26, 2022
“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, 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,” Trump wrote on his rinky-dink Twitter clone.
He then doubled down on his initial, unconvincing claim. “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,” Trump continued. “I told him don’t run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win. Fake News went crazy.”
It’s a pretty loaded — and also not very effective — statement. There’s him trying to paint a celebrity who torched his own career with bigoted statements as a victim. There’s the whole “who happens to be black” bit. Then there’s him lazily falling back on the “Fake News” line, which presumably now include the aforementioned Trump site, which is also known for publishing creatively moronic conspiracy theories about the pandemic.
Trump may weasel his way out of this — and his many, many other problems — just as he’s done his whole life. But for now, enjoy his panicky nonsense.