Tel-Chai Nation: Donald Trump's invitation to Kanye West was a PR fiasco

One that's bound to have an echo effect for years. Jim Geraghty makes some points how Trump's invitation for West to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago - which also saw the attendance of Nick Fuentes - was completely avoidable. Geraghty also reminds Israelis what West thinks of the Likud and its leader:

Oh, and also during the interview, West pretended that “a fish net and bottle of Yoo-Hoo” were past and likely future Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yup, West attacked Netanyahu as well. Apparently, that's West's way of making clear he definitely stands with the Democrats on something. There's more:

Watching an ongoing train wreck of a man revel in saying the most abhorrent things he could imagine is spectacularly sad, but I won’t lie: I was genuinely amused by the sight of the legendarily unhinged conspiracy theorist Jones suddenly realizing that he was the sane one in the conversation. Jones’s nervous, “I’ve studied a lot of history, plus I had family that was there, I don’t think Hitler was a good guy” is a bizarre echo of the increasingly unnerved Saturday Night Live actor Mike Myers, who was standing alongside West during a telethon for Hurricane Katrina victims when West veered off script and declared that, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Stand next to Kanye West long enough, and eventually he’ll say something you feel a need to disassociate yourself from, lest he destroy your reputation by mere proximity.

It seems like West is so desperate to make an insane point, he was willing to make all the crass statements possible. It's stupefying how somebody like him could be going miles out of his way to make such horrifically blatant statements, and the worst part being that it's got to be deliberate, in order to take away attention from more pressing issues like Islamofascism, and it's additionally chilling to wonder what his beliefs are on that too.

Second, that dinner at Mar-a-Lago with former president Trump, West, Nick Fuentes, and Milo Yiannopoulos sounds like a pit of vipers. One of the harshest things you can say about everyone at that dinner is that they all deserve each other. But we’re now left with the fact that the most recent former president invited a man to dinner who had already pledged to go “Death Con 3” on the Jews, and who subsequently went on a program and told everyone how he loved Nazis, the Holocaust didn’t happen, and Hitler had a lot of redeeming qualities.

If the accounts of the dinner are correct, the only thing that West and Fuentes said that offended Trump was the declaration that West would run for president in 2024 and that Trump should be his running mate.

Whenever you raise this sort of thing, some Trump defender will point to Jared Kushner and insist that Trump can’t be credibly accused of antisemitism because he has Jews in his close family. Indeed, it is hard to believe that Trump himself genuinely hates Jews, or that the former president believes that the Holocaust didn’t happen. But what we’ve seen, time and again, is that Trump has absolutely no problem hanging around with other people who are genuine antisemites or Holocaust deniers, as long as they praise Trump and stroke his ego. The problem with Trump is not that he buys into the evil beliefs of these repugnant hatemongers, it’s that he does not care that these repugnant hatemongers have evil beliefs and are trying to spread them. Trump still hasn’t denounced Fuentes, and he may never do so. The “I didn’t know who that guy was” excuse doesn’t get Trump off the hook. Donald Trump is okay with evil, as long as evil says nice things about him.

Sadly, what Trump did here dampens the impact of his having a Jewish son-in-law, because he didn't consider that this could hurt him as well. More on which anon. For now, the point is, this invitation Trump gave to these scoundrels didn't have to be. It was avoidable, and sadly, Trump didn't turn them away when he had the chance.

Following this whole embarrassment, former NY state assemblyman Dov Hikind said he's had it with Trump:

Hikind, who backed Trump during his two presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020, told The Jerusalem Post in a report published Monday that he can never support the former president again after he hosted the two prominent antisemites, and refused to apologize or condemn either of them.

“Trump has disqualified himself, plain and simple; it's over for him,” Hikind said.

“This incident goes beyond the pale,” Hikind continued. “It never should have happened in the first place, but after it did happen, Donald Trump should have apologized.”

“He should have said something. He said he didn't know who [Fuentes] was. He said he didn't know a Holocaust denier was sitting at the same table with him enjoying dinner.”

"Nobody Googled who was having dinner with the former president?"

"I don't know if I believe that, but let's say it's true. By the next day, he knew, how come he didn't say anything? And [Trump] said he likes Kanye regardless of what he says because ‘he says nice things about me.’ It's pathetic.”

Indeed. Now, here's an op-ed by Ariel Kahana about this whole debacle:

Even if this dinner was indeed an innocent mistake, Trump is still duty-bound to make amends. But Trump, who has yet to apologize (he never does), has only poured more fuel into the fire. His statement on Friday, in which he essentially invoked the old accusation of "dual loyalty" and also gave backing to anti-Israeli members of Congress from the fringe of the Democratic Party, only makes the surge of antisemitism in the US that much worse. There is more than one reason to believe that Trump's decision to engage in such rhetoric is part of a deliberate cynical approach to the issue.

Trump could have sought to assuage Jews or explain what he did. But instead, he has been sounding dog whistles that are music to antisemites. For the first time he has managed to bring together white supremacists and African American antisemites, with both having Jew-hatred as a common denominator.

On top of that, just days before the controversial dinner with Ye, Trump wrote on Truth Social the following: "No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US." He added that America's Jews must "get their act together" and show appreciation for all of his actions to benefit Israel "before it is too late."

The severity of those words speaks for itself, but Trump never explained what he meant by "before it is too late." In light of the ensuing Ye-Fuentes controversy, one could be forgiven for thinking this was part of a larger plan: Trump gave Israel a final warning before he would start setting things ablaze, and now that the Jews have failed to heed his warning, he opted to meet with Ye and Fuentes and proceeded to attack Jewish Americans in order to advance his overarching goal of garnering political support from everyone he can.

Viewed in context of his disastrous dinner, one could wonder if Trump was saying that, if Jewish Americans and even Israelis didn't follow his expectations, he'd go against them by taking paths that do more harm than good to everyone, no matter what they think of Trump.

One person who may have gotten word of this plan and decided to keep a safe distance was Jared Kushner, Trump's Jewish son-in-law. Kushner, who was the architect of his 2016 victory, has made sure to show he is having a good time very far away from Mar-a-Lago, enjoying every moment of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. Perhaps he knows something we don't.

Yes, that may be so. Trump may have been victim of election fraud ousting him, but what he's done now will make it hard to care, and certainly embarrass anybody who realizes the harm this can do. So if his political career is over as a result, it may be for the best. We must hope other Republican members like Ron deSantis will learn vital lessons from this, and shun everybody with a mind like West's going forward.

Update: and now it's been reported that Stop Antisemitism's nominated West for the antisemite of the year: