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My first inclination was to write “Should we tell him?” — but we’ll get to that, later.

In yet another controversy that should never have happened, as we reported on Friday, former President Donald Trump had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with not only Kanye West, who has made multiple anti-Semitic comments of late, but also with white nationalist Nick Fuentes of Holocaust-denial infamy.

After the news of Trump’s dinner with the white nationalist broke, the former president offered up the following excuse (emphasis, mine):

This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport.

Lemme repeat: This should never have happened, and Trump’s lame excuse that Kanye unexpectedly showed up with Fuentes and two other friends amounted to nothing more than shirking of responsibility. Check out a few of this guy’s views, below.

“The Jews had better start being nice to people like us, because what comes out of this is going to get a lot uglier for them…”

Meet neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. Fuentes was President Trump’s dinner guest at Mar-a-Lago this week along with Kanye West. pic.twitter.com/2n2Dgmjo9J

— Jaime Kirzner-Roberts (@jaimekr) November 25, 2022

While there’s at least a chance that Trump didn’t know who Fuentes was, shouldn’t one or more of his “only the best people” have either known or vetted everyone who walks through the doors of Mar-a-Lago to meet with the boss? A resounding “Yes.” Besides, Trump knew full well about Kanye’s anti-Semitic diatribes.

So, as the fallout continues, Trump fires up Truth Social, predictably plays the victim card, and makes an ironic as hell statement about Kanye West:

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 I can give him very much need “advice.”

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 I don’t want him to run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win. Fake News went CRAZY!

There it was: “Fake News.” Except it wasn’t just “fake news” that went after Trump.

Irony at its best. pic.twitter.com/cX9WtwuBrq

— MikesRight (@RealLibSmacker) November 27, 2022

Trump has successfully parlayed his “Fake News!” shtick into his automatic reaction, and that of Trump loyalists, every time another negative story erupts, most of them of his own doing.

West claimed in a Twitter post that Trump was very angry when “Ye” asked him to be his running mate in 2024. I don’t know about you, but I would’ve done pay-per-view to watch that conversation go down.

I think that was like lower on the list of things that caught him off guard. [Trump was] basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose. I mean, has that ever worked for anyone in history? I’m like, ‘Woah, woah, hold on hold on Trump, you’re talking to Ye.’

Again, pay-per-view-quality stuff, right there.

#YE24 pic.twitter.com/DyIhMU5By6

— ye (@kanyewest) November 25, 2022

The Bottom Line

I don’t know how “seriously troubled” Donald Trump is, but I do believe — as do a majority of Americans, including a growing number of Republicans — that whatever one thinks about Trump; good, bad, or indifferent, he carries far too much baggage, most of which is self-inflicted, to win the White House in 2024.

Simply, while I voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and will vote for him in 2024 if he’s the GOP nominee, I believe there are better options for Republican voters, and that if Trump is the nominee, the Democrats will retain control of the White House.

I’m well aware that untold numbers of diehard Trump loyalists still exist, many of whom are hardwired to support the former president, come hell or high water. So join the debate in the comments section but please don’t break the furniture.