Reporters pressed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy about his false claim that former president Donald Trump denounced white supremacist Nick Fuentes four times.
Mr McCarthy spoke to reporters after he met with President Joe Biden about a potential railroad strike. Last week, Mr Trump dined with rapper Kanye West and Mr Fuentes, a noted white supremacist and antisemite.
“I don’t think anybody should be spending any time with Nick Fuentes,” he said. “He has no place in this Republican Party. I think President Trump came out four times and condemned him and didn't know who he was.”
But Mr Trump did not denounce Mr Fuentes; he just said that he did not know who Mr Fuentes was. The trio dined at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.
“So I 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,’” Mr Trump said on Truth Social. “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!”
One reporter noted to Mr McCarthy how Mr Trump did not condemn his ideology.
“Well I condemn his ideology,” Mr McCarthy said.
Mr McCarthy is currently seeking to win a majority of votes from members of Congress after House Republicans won a slim majority earlier this month. A potential speaker must win not just a majority of votes in the majority party, but also a majority of votes from all members of Congress who are present on the day of the vote.
But Mr McCarthy also has to deal with the fact that two of his members, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, spoke to Mr Fuentes’s conference earlier this year. Neither faced any consequences and are slated to be put back on their committees.
