DAN COLEMAN: Trump’s rivals need to unite in a manner they failed to do in 2016 to stop support among extremists from winning him the nomination.

At a news conference late last month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “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 was responding to Donald Trump’s dinner meeting with celebrity antisemite Ye (formerly Kanye West), high-profile neofascist Nick Fuentes and alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

Trump’s vice-president Mike Pence, appearing on Newsnation, said Trump “was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologise.” Trump, true to character, said he has no intention of doing so.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie called it “another example of an awful lack of judgment from Donald Trump, which, combined with his past poor judgments, make him an untenable general election candidate for the Republican Party in 2024.”

Providing context for these criticisms, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, told the New York Times last week, “Nick Fuentes is among the most prominent and unapologetic antisemites in the country. He’s a vicious bigot and known Holocaust denier who has been condemned by leading figures from both political parties”.

To Greenblatt, the possibility that “any serious contender for higher office would meet with him and validate him by sharing a meal and spending time is appalling”.

Trump has received such criticisms before and brushed them off unscathed. Notably, in 2016, he was widely pressured to abjure the endorsement he received from KKK leader David Duke. He refused to do so and was elected president, nonetheless.