The White House has blasted former president Donald Trump for meeting at his Florida estate with a notorious white supremacist and with rapper Kanye West.
Trump had dinner with Fuentes on Tuesday night alongside rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, US media reported on Friday.
"I didn't know Nick Fuentes," Trump posted on his Truth Social account late Friday.
White House deputy press secretary Andrews Bates on Saturday condemned Trump's meeting with Fuentes, AFP reported.
"Bigotry, hate, and anti-Semitism have absolutely no place in America -- including at Mar-a-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned," Bates told CNN.
President Joe Biden however ducked a question about Trump's dinner: "You don't wanna hear what I think."
Trump last week formally entered the 2024 race for the White House, his third serious presidential bid, and his embrace of a white nationalist unsettled some of his one-time administration officials.
So far, he is the only prominent Republican to enter the race to challenge Biden.
In the meantime, multiple other GOP officials and members of the Trump administration have voiced their readiness to take part in the 2024 US presidential race.
Among the more prominent Republican volunteers include former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who have acknowledged they may mount a challenge.
'Trump has a very long history of being a white supremacist'
Trump has a "very long history," going back to his father, of being a white supremacist, according to a political analyst and a former congressional candidate.
"As a landlord in New York, he clearly was overtly racist in his practices and passed along these traits to Donald when he started to be involved in the housing and rental industry,” Hoenig told Press TV.
“Throughout his 2016 campaign, he targeted non-whites, especially Latinos, classifying all of them as drug dealers, criminals, rapists,” he added.
“His entire immigration policy is to refuse entry to people from what he calls shithole countries and bring in people from places like Norway,” Hoenig said. “During the Charlottesville Neo-nazi rally, where one woman was murdered, Trump said there were good people on both sides.”