- Mike Pence said Donald Trump was "wrong" for hosting Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago and should apologize.
- Trump met with Kanye West last week, who "unexpectedly" arrived with Fuentes, a known white supremacist.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said the president he served with, Donald Trump, was "wrong" for hosting Holocaust-denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes as his Mar-a-Lago residence last week, urging him to apologize "without qualification."
The former president has been under fire after The New York Times and Politico reported that he hosted controversial rapper Ye, formally known as Kanye West, for dinner at Mar-a-Lago along with three other guests, including Fuentes, whom Trump said he "knew nothing about."
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that, in hosting the dinner, he wanted to "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.'"
"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. I told him don't run for office, a total waste of time, can't win. Fake News went CRAZY!" Trump continued, claiming that he did not know Nick Fuentes at the time of the dinner.
Several top Republicans, including Pence, have since condemned the former president's meeting with Fuentes and Ye, who also recently made antisemitic comments.
"President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an anti-Semite, and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table," Pence said in an interview with NewsNation that aired Monday. "I think he should apologize for it and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification."
Pence went on to say that, despite hosting individuals who have publicly touted antisemitic rhetoric at his Mar-a-Lago home, he doesn't believe that the former president is "a racist or a bigot."
"I would not have been his vice president if he was," Pence said.
The former vice president added: "I think the president demonstrated profoundly poor judgment in giving those individuals a seat at the table."
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The dinner comes just weeks after the former president officially announced his bid for the White House in 2024, making for a bumpy start to his contentious presidential campaign.
"If it was any other party, breaking bread with Nick Fuentes would be instantly disqualifying for Trump," Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa said, per a report by Politico. "The most extreme views have found a home in today's MAGA Republican party."