Publisher of white nationalist platform attends Trump adviser Kudlow's birthday party

Just after the White House dismissed a speechwriter amid reports he spoke at a white nationalist conference, President Donald Trump's economic adviser confirmed to The Washington Post that the publisher of a website that features white nationalist content attended his birthday party. 

Peter Brimelow, the 70-year-old publisher of the anti-immigration website Vdare.com, joined Larry Kudlow at his Connecticut home for a party celebrating the former CNBC host's 71st birthday, the Post reported. 

The White House confirmed Monday that speechwriter Darren Beattie was fired after reports surfaced that he spoke at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club Conference – an annual gathering that has featured prominent white nationalists such as Richard Spencer.

Brimelow spoke at the same 2016 event. 

Kudlow told the Post that he had known Brimelow "forever" but was unaware of his work on VDare.com and of his views on race.  

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"If I had known this, we would never have invited him,” Kudlow said. “I’m disappointed and saddened to hear about it." 

He added that Brimelow has been "coming to my dinner parties for years" but "none of this other stuff has ever come up." 

The Post describes Brimelow as a "once a well-connected figure in mainstream conservative circles" who "over the past two decades, he has become a zealous promoter of white-identity politics." 

Brimelow founded the website in 1999. In 2016, he told the Harvard Crimson in an email that, "I don't regard us as a 'white nationalist' site although we certainly publish a few writers I would regard as 'white nationalist' in that they stand up for whites just as Zionists, Black Nationalists do for Jews, Blacks etc." 

The Southern Poverty Law Center called Brimelow "one of the leading voices in the anti-immigrant movement." 

On the website, VDare describes itself as a "non-profit journalistic enterprise" that seeks to send the message that "America is not a melting pot," that diversity "is not strength, but a vulnerability," and that there is value scientific racism. 

"I’ve known Larry for nearly 40 years," Brimelow told the Post in a statement. "I regard him as a personal friend. They knew my first wife, who died, and were most kind to Lydia when I remarried. We agreed to disagree on immigration long ago."

Kudlow told the Post Brimelow's immigration views were a "side of Peter that I don't know, and I totally, utterly disagree with that point of view and I have my whole life." 

"I'm a civil rights Republican," he said.