Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) on Sunday slammed former President Trump for meeting last week with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, calling it "very troubling."
Driving the news: "No, I don't think it's a good idea for a leader that's setting an example for the country or the party to meet with a vowed racist or antisemite," Hutchinson said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.
- "It's very troubling and it shouldn't happen and we need to avoid those kind of empowering the extremes," he said.
- "When you meet with people, you empower and that's what you have to avoid, you want to diminish their strength, not empower them."
- "What Donald Trump did, and his failure to condemn it, is really the minority of the party, it's the extreme side of it and that's what you've got to distance yourself from and he failed to do that," he added.
The big picture: Trump had dinner last week with Fuentes, who has been labeled a "white supremacist" by the Justice Department, and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at Mar-a-Lago.
- The meeting took place after Trump formally announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
- Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has also criticized the meeting, telling the New York Times that Trump showed an "awful lack of judgment."
Between the lines: Hutchinson told CNN earlier this month that he is "very seriously" considering running for president in 2024.
Go deeper... GOP governor says Trump “politically, morally responsible” for Jan. 6