Joe Lieberman: I don’t think Trump is antisemitic, but ‘he’s got to cut it out’
Ryan King
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Former Sen. Joe Lieberman lambasted former President Donald Trump’s dinner with Nick Fuentes but said he didn’t believe Trump was antisemitic.
Echoing the backlash from both the Left and the Right, Lieberman, who is Jewish, warned that the dinner elevated antisemitism and racism in the country and said the saga greatly diminishes “loser” Trump’s odds of scoring the GOP nod in 2024 or winning a second term as president.
“You can’t claim this innocence anymore. People say he’s not an antisemite. I don’t believe he is either. But you come to a point where you begin to say things and do things that encourage racism and antisemitism, and people are going to think, ‘Oh, maybe that’s really who he is,'” Lieberman told CBS. “He’s got to cut it out.”
Lieberman countered Trump’s attempts to plead ignorance, noting Trump was aware of the planned attendance of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, at the dinner and recalling the rapper’s antisemitic remarks, such as his tweets vowing to go “death con” on Jewish people, among other diatribes. Ye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016. Trump has described Ye as a “seriously troubled man.”
“He knows what Kanye West has been saying. … He knows that international businesses have cut ties with West because of his antisemitism, and yet he invites him to Mar-a-Lago,” Lieberman chided. “All anybody close to the president had to do was to go online and Google or Wikipedia [Fuentes], and it just jumps out how foul he is.”
Two days before families across the country converged around dinner tables for Thanksgiving, Ye walked through the gilded halls of Mar-a-Lago for a dinner with Trump, bringing with him three guests, including Fuentes.
Fuentes has trafficked in Holocaust denialism and peddled white supremacist rhetoric, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Fuentes has downplayed those allegations, saying, “I reject all labels other than Christian American” in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The meeting was met with widespread denunciation from Democrats and a slew of Republicans alike. After the dinner, Ye and Fuentes publicly indicated Trump was receptive to them, but Trump subsequently distanced himself from them, adamant that he was unaware of Fuentes’s racist history. His team is reportedly revamping the Mar-a-Lago vetting process.
Lieberman become the first Jewish candidate to be on a major party presidential ticket in U.S. history when he served as former Vice President Al Gore’s running mate in 2000.
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The centrist Democrat also underscored that the episode will likely not bode well for Trump’s 2024 campaign, which the former president debuted last month.
“In some ways, I think this effectively ought to end Trump’s credible chances of being the Republican nominee or being president,” Lieberman added. “It’s just harmful to our society. I appreciate that a lot of Republicans have spoken out against what Trump has done and they’re beginning to speak out against him because he’s a loser, as far as I’m concerned.”