Mike Pence Calls on Trump to Apologize For Neo-Nazi Dinner

Former Vice President Mike Pence called on his former boss, Donald Trump, to apologize on Monday as GOP backlash to the former president’s dinner with anti-Semitism-spewing rapper Kanye West and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes continues to grow.

Pence joined anchor Leland Vittert for an interview airing Monday night on his NewsNation program On Balance with Leland Vittert.

“President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table. And I think he should apologize for it and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification,” Pence told Vittert, commenting on the dinner.

“With that being said, as I point out in the book as well, I, I don’t believe Donald Trump is an anti-Semite. I don’t believe he’s a racist or a bigot. I would not have been his vice president if he was. And, you know, people often forget the president’s daughter converted to Judaism,” Pence continued, noting how Jared Kushner was “a devout Jew” and his children with Ivanka Trump were Jewish too.

Pence denounced “the broad brush of attack that media leveled at [Trump,” but still said the former president should apologize: “I think the president demonstrated profoundly poor judgment in giving those individuals a seat at the table. And as I said, I think he should apologize for it. You should denounce them without qualification.”

Pence’s call for Trump to apologize is the most prominent condemnation from a top Republican yet of Trump’s meeting with West and Fuentes.

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, tore into Trump on Monday, joining Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) in condemning Trump for meeting Fuentes.

Watch above, via On Balance with Leland Vittert on NewsNation.

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