Former President Donald Trump has been under criticism for his Nov. 22 dinner with musician Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.

West, who formally changed his name to Ye, has made antisemitic comments while Fuentes has frequently espoused white supremacy views.

Trump posted several defending statements to Truth Social in the days following the dinner after receiving criticism from rivals and allies on both sides of the aisle. Trump said West brought Fuentes without his knowledge. Fuentes confirmed in an interview that Trump was not aware of him before the dinner.

West's antisemitic remarks in October were met with harsh criticism and resulted in the termination of his fashion partnerships including Adidas and Balenciaga. Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and member of the white nationalist organization America First, was at the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and called the event "awesome."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell responded to the incident without naming Trump directly.

"There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy, and anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States," McConnell said on Tuesday.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said that doesn't think anyone should spend time with Fuentes and that Fuentes' views were "nowhere within the Republican Party or within this country itself."

McCarthy may soon become the Speaker of the House when Republicans take control of the chamber in January.

A former Trump advisor has said that the dinner was a "set-up" attempt against the 2024 candidate. "The master troll got trolled. Kanye punked Trump," the advisor told NBC News.

West said in a video posted to Twitter that he asked Trump to be his running mate in 2024, a request that reportedly enraged Trump. West announced in a tweet on Friday that he would run for president.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart editor and far-right figure, has claimed responsibility for the dinner. In an interview with NBC News, Yiannopoulos – who now holds the position of political adviser to West – said he was the "architect" of the plan to have Fuentes accompany the rapper to the Mar-a-Lago dinner.

"I wanted to show Trump the kind of talent that he's missing out on by allowing his terrible handlers to dictate who he can and can't hang out with," Yiannopoulos said.

"I also wanted to send a message to Trump that he has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most, the people who put him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end."

Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter in 2016 following a racist campaign against comedian Leslie Jones and lost a 2017 book deal for appearing to condone pedophilia. He has been identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist and was present at the far-right Charlottesville rally in 2017.

"I hate to say it, but the chickens are coming home to roost. You know, this is the frustration with his base and with his true loyalists," Yiannopoulos said of his "set-up" plan against Trump.

He claimed he made the arrangements, "just to make Trump's life miserable."

According to an NBC News source, "Trump was totally blindsided" by the event. He reportedly said afterward, "He tried to f--- me. He's crazy. He can't beat me."

In a post to Truth Social following the dinner, Trump said that he told West not to run for president and "any voters you may have should vote for TRUMP."

"I didn't know Nick Fuentes," Trump said in a separate post.

Fuentes and Trump are both being investigated in connection with the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol.

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