WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared to take aim at former President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his decision to host Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes for dinner last week at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
The GOP's Senate leader opened his weekly news conference by saying that there was no room in the Republican Party for anti-Semitism or white supremacy. I think anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view is highly unlikely to be elected president of the United States. McConnell didn't name Trump in his remarks and when asked by reporters about whether he would support the former president if he wins the GOP nomination in 2024, McConnell didn't respond directly.
There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy, and that would apply to all of the leaders in the party who will be seeking office, he said.
The comments were McConnell's first about the dinner since Trump hosted Ye the rapper formerly known as Kanye West Fuentes and others last week. Fuentes denied that the Holocaust occurred, and Ye has made numerous antisemitic remarks recently.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, weighed in on the dinner for the first time after a meeting with congressional leaders and President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday morning.
McCarthy said that he didn't think anyone should spend any time with Nick Fuentes, because he was asked about the meeting. He has no place in the Republican Party. I think President Trump came out four times and condemned him and didn't know who he was. Trump did not condemn him since the dinner, while he claimed he didn't know who Fuentes was.
The responses from the top Republican leaders in Congress came five days after Trump shared on his Truth Social platform that he had hosted the dinner earlier in the week. The former Vice President Mike Pence said yesterday that Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table. A number of Senate Republicans also spoke out against Trump in interviews with reporters on Capitol Hill after lawmakers returned from Thanksgiving break.