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Trump’s Dinner With Kanye Also Included a Former Aide Accused in Pay-for-Pardon Play, and White Supremacist Fuentes

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Donald Trump‘s dinner earlier this week with antisemite Kanye West and holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes may also have included two other right-wingers, hinted at by the former president himself.

After Axios‘ reporting confirmed that Fuentes had in fact had dinner with Trump, Trump issued a statement saying, “Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about.”

But later, on Friday afternoon via his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote a defense of the dinner with an expanded guest list.

READ MORE: Trump Claims He ‘Knew Nothing About’ the White Supremacist Antisemite Who He and Kanye West Dined With at Mar-a-Lago

“This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump wrote. “Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport.”

As The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman noted, Trump did not denounce his guest’s extremist beliefs.

“Three of his friends,” according to the far-right wing website Breitbart, apparently includes Fuentes, far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and former Trump 2016 aide Karen Giorno.

Breitbart states, “two people who say they were at the dinner on Tuesday evening–Yiannopoulos and onetime Trump aide Karen Giorno–have publicly stated that Fuentes was in fact at the dinner with West and Trump.”

“’Nick attended the dinner and sat across from the president. I sat to the president’s right and Ye to his left,’ Giorno said in a statement to podcaster Tim Poole’s website Timcast,” Breitbart reports. “‘The president was by himself for dinner but invited Ye to meet some people on the patio.'”

Politico reports Giorno “confirmed to Politico that she was also at the dinner with Trump, West and Fuentes,” but does not mention Yiannopoulos as a dinner guest.

READ MORE: Watch: Chasten Buttigieg Says Tucker Carlson Is Focusing on ‘Hate’ After Host’s Latest Anti-Gay Attack on His Husband

Referring to Kanye West by his new name, VICE News adds: “Ye, who has been been on an antisemitic spiral in recent months, announced he is going to be running for president in 2024, and Yiannopoulos is his campaign manager. He claimed that he asked the former president to run with him as his vice-president. According to Ye, the dinner involving the billionaire, the rapper, and the white nationalist devolved into screaming and derogatory epithets.”

Yiannopoulos is the former Breitbart editor who became disgraced after saying, “I think in the gay world some of the most important, enriching and incredibly life-affirming, important shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men.” Earlier this year U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene came under fire for hiring, as an intern, Yiannopoulos, even after he appeared to support sexual “relationships” between boys as young as 13 and older men.

Karen Giorno, The New York Times reported early last year, “had access to people around the president, having run Mr. Trump’s campaign in Florida during the 2016 primary and remaining on board as a senior political adviser during the general election.”

“In July 2018, Ms. Giorno signed an agreement with Mr. Kiriakou, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, ‘to seek a full pardon from President Donald Trump of his conviction’ for $50,000 and promised another $50,000 as a bonus if she secured a pardon,” The Times reports.

Kiriakou is John Kiriakou, who The Times identifies as “a former C.I.A. officer convicted of illegally disclosing classified information.”

On what appears to be her Instagram page, Giorno has photos of herself with numerous Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Flynn, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida attorney general Ashley Moody and several other top Florida elected officials, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, and Sarah Palin, among others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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US Could Slide Into Putin-Style Rule After Trump Foreign Policy Shift: Journalist

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In a stark warning on the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, The Bulwark’s editor, Jonathan V. Last, suggests that under Trump, America may adopt Putinism as its domestic policy, having already adopted it for its foreign policy.

“Will Putinism take over American domestic politics, too?” Last asks, in an opinion piece titled, “This Is the End.”

“America has adopted Putinism as its modus operandi for foreign affairs,” he says. “Why would America not also adopt Putinism in its domestic affairs? Why would the American regime tolerate free and fair elections or the transfer of power to an opposition party?”

Pursuing the question, Last continued: “Are there examples of expansionist, rogue regimes which ignored international law and attempted to subjugate free people abroad, but respected liberal democratic outcomes that terminated their possession of power at home?”

READ MORE: ‘Dictators’ Tea Party’: Trump’s Board of Peace Ridiculed as New Details Revealed

To those who suggest Trumpism is temporary, Last suggests he disagrees.

“Many people comfort themselves by saying some version of ‘Donald Trump is an aberration’ or ‘This isn’t who we are,'” he writes.

But, he continues, “If Trump was an aberration and his actions did not have sufficient public support, then he would be removed from office. There are two mechanisms for doing so—impeachment and the 25th Amendment.”

“Trump will not be removed from office; which allows one of two conclusions. Either: Trump’s policies are supported by a sufficient percentage of Americans to be viable; or America’s constitutional order is so ossified that it no longer functions to safeguard the will of the people.”

“Neither of these is an alibi,” Last warns, noting that, “either one supports the conclusion that the problem is not Trump. It is America and Americans. This is who we are. Like it or not.”

Last also makes several other predictions:

“The days of intelligence sharing between America and our former allies are drawing to a close.”

“The death of NATO.”

“Germany, Poland, and Canada will acquire nuclear weapons. So will Japan. Sweden, Australia, and South Korea may develop nuclear capabilities as well.”

“Europe will draw closer to China.”

“Greenland will become disputed territory.”

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

 

Image via Reuters

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Treasury Chief Draws Ridicule for Wanting to Protect Americans With ‘5, 10, 12 Homes’

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Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent was met with mockery after explaining he wants to protect “mom and pop” owners who have up to a dozen homes they’ve bought as retirement investments.

Bessent and President Donald Trump have declared they want to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes as housing becomes more scarce and less affordable.

“We are going to give guidance at some point to see what is a mom and pop, that someone — maybe your parents — for their retirement, [bought] about 5, 10, 12 homes,” Bessent told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“So we don’t want to push the mom and pops out,” he continued. “We just want to push everyone else out.”

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, has an estimated net worth of $521 million, according to The Street.

Critics were quick to ridicule Bessent as out of touch.

“Good news for the forgotten man,” declared The Bulwark’s Tim Miller. “The mom and pop real estate investor who has purchased 12 homes can breathe easy, the Treasury Secretary is looking out for you.”

“These people are completely out of touch with how life is for you,” observed The Lincoln Project.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s Press Office commented, “Scott, people are trying to buy 1 house — to live in. Could the Trump Admin be any more out of touch?”


READ MORE: ‘Code Red’: Newsom Tells Europe They’ve Been Played by ‘T-Rex’ Trump

 

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‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

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While facing opposition from European leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Donald Trump took time out late Tuesday morning to go on a social media spree, including promoting a post that labeled NATO and the United Nations as threats while declaring that the “enemy is within.”

Trump’s controversial Board of Peace is “falling apart,” according to Bloomberg News UK Political Editor Alex Wickham, who reported that “The UK is not joining the board as things stand,” and that its spokesperson said the UK’s commitment to the UN is “unwavering.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has also announced that he would not join the Board of Peace, which requires at least a $1 billion donation for a country to have permanent membership — which can be rescinded by Donald Trump, who is the organization’s chairman.

“So at what point are we going to realize the enemy is within,” the post Trump promoted began. “China and Russia are the boogeymen when the real threat is the U.N., NATO and this ‘religion.’ I put ‘religion’ in quotes because it’s not a religion, it’s a cult!”

READ MORE: ‘Code Red’: Newsom Tells Europe They’ve Been Played by ‘T-Rex’ Trump

The religion mention appeared to be a reference to Islam.

Former Obama and Biden official Jesse Lee responded, writing: “So is Trump threatening to invade Greenland to counter Russia and China as he has ludicrously claimed, or is this just the beginning of his war against Europe as it seems on its face?”

Trump, or someone with access to his Truth Social account, posted dozens of posts in approximately 90 minutes.

His last post so far, at 11:47 AM ET, read: “No single person, or President, has done more for NATO than President Donald J. Trump. If I didn’t come along, there would be no NATO right now!!! It would have been in the ash heap of History. Sad, but TRUE!!! President DJT”

READ MORE: ‘25th Amendment Territory’: Critics Warn Trump Impeachment Is ‘Not Enough’

 

Image via Reuters 

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