Asa Hutchinson (file photo) Brian Chilson

Republican Governor Hutchinson, who’s considering a run for president, has called out former President Trump for meeting with a white supremacist

Trump was host to a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West who has recently voiced anti-Semitic views.

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Interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Hutchinson said, “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 avowed racist or anti-Semite. And so it’s very troubling, and it shouldn’t happen.”

Hutchinson dismissed the notion that the meeting wasn’t planned. “This was not an accidental meeting,” he said.

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A former U.S. attorney, Hutchinson said, “The last time I met with a white supremacist, it was in an armed standoff. I had a bulletproof vest on. We arrested them, prosecuted them, sent them to prison.”

“We need to avoid these kinds of empowering the extremes,” Hutchinson said. “When you meet with people, you empower” them. “You want to diminish their strength, not empower” the extremes.

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Hutchinson said he hopes that “someday we won’t have to be responding to what former President Trump has said or done.”

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