Mike Pence calls on Donald Trump to apologise for dining with anti-Semite

Former US vice president Mike Pence called on ex-president Donald Trump to apologise for having dinner with rapper Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — as well as a known white nationalist and anti-Semite.

Mr Pence said the former president had exercised “profoundly poor judgment” when hosting Ye and Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.

“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 apologise for it,” Mr Pence said during an interview with NewsNation on Monday.

Mr Pence, who could challenge Mr Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, said he does not believe the former president is a white nationalist or an anti-Semite, but said he “demonstrated profoundly poor judgment”.

Other prominent Republicans joined in criticising the former president.

Marco Rubio, a US senator from Florida, called Mr Fuentes “evil” and said the meeting with Mr Trump “legitimised” him.

Mr Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill that he had “no idea” how Mr Fuentes and Ye were permitted inside Mar-a-Lago.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, said “there is no bottom to the degree to which president Trump will degrade himself and the nation”.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday that “there is just no place for these types of vile forces in our society”.

And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, called Mr Trump's dining with Mr Fuentes “disgusting and dangerous”.

“All should condemn him giving an anti-Semite even the smallest platform — much less a dinner audience,” he said.

Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, holds a rally in Lansing, Michigan, in 2020. AP

The US Justice Department has described Mr Fuentes as a white supremacist and he attended a Trump rally on January 6, 2021, which preceded the attack on the US Capitol.

The Anti-Defamation League said Mr Fuentes once "'jokingly' denied the Holocaust and compared Jews burnt in concentration camps to cookies in an oven”.

Mr Trump said on Truth Social that he had met Ye to offer him business advice.

“We also discussed, to a lesser extent, politics, where I told him he should definitely not run for president,” he wrote.

The former president maintained that he did not know Mr Fuentes.

Reuters contributed to this report

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

Four-day collections of TOH

Day Indian Rs (Dh)

Thursday 500.75 million (25.23m)

Friday 280.25m (14.12m)

Saturday 220.75m (11.21m)

Sunday 170.25m (8.58m)

Total 1.19bn (59.15m)

(Figures in millions, approximate)

Mike Pence calls on Donald Trump to apologise for dining with anti-Semite

US Justice Department describes Nick Fuentes as a white supremacist

Four-day collections of TOH