“Trump is on his hero’s journey, right now. And he might not have expected to have a crazy [expletive] like Kanye West run up and support. You know, I love Hillary. I love everyone, right. But the campaign, ‘I’m With Her,’ just didn’t make me feel as a guy — that didn’t get to see my dad all the time — like a guy that could play catch with his son. It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. So when I said, ‘I like Trump,’ to like someone that’s liberal, they’ll say, ‘Oh, but he’s racist.’ You think racism could control me? Oh that don’t stop me, that’s an invisible wall. Best believe, we are going to make America great. Now the thing is — another thing is black people have an issue with the word ‘again.’ And I believe — my feeling from that is because I’m going to go all the way — because time is a myth. All we have is now. All we have is today. So the word ‘again,’ it doesn’t hurt us because the idea of racism and slavery ... It, it hurts us, because we need to focus on who we are now, today. I believe so. I actually brought some hats in that have a bit of a transition — I’m not trying to — I’ll put you on the spot a little bit. I made a hat that says, ‘Make America Great.’ Just that.” “Let me ask you this question, you’re in the Oval Office. How does it feel to be in the Oval Office?” “Oh, it is good energy in this.” “Isn’t it good energy?” “We’re going to need to get a few breaks to be able to have some places in my hometown of Chicago and the 2.7 million to the 9 million surrounding suburbs where we can create some factories. I think it would be cool for them to be Trump factories because he’s a master of industry. He’s a builder. And I think it’d be cool to have Yeezy ideation centers, which would be a mix of education that empowers people and gives them modern information, like sometimes people say, ‘This kid has A.D.D. This kid has A.D.D.’ He don’t have A.D.D. School is boring. It was boring, it’s not as exciting as this. We have to make it more exciting. We have to mix curriculums. You play basketball while you’re doing math. You learn about music while you meditate in the morning. We have instate mental health and art programs back into the — back to the cities. I love this guy, right here. Let me give this guy a hug, right here. I love this guy, right here.” “That’s really nice. And that’s from the heart. I didn’t want to put you in that position, but that’s from the heart — special guy.”<doc-sep>Lots of people had strong reactions to Kanye West's comments praising President Donald Trump during their White House meeting on Thursday. And then there's T.I. The Atlanta rapper, who collaborated with 'Ye on the 2006 track "Swagga Like Us," publicly unfriended West in an NSFW Instagram post. "At one time it was a pleasure to work alongside you... now, I’m ashamed to have ever been associated with you," he wrote. "I’ve reached my limits. This is my stop, I’m officially DONE!!!!" T.I. prefaced his essay by saying, "Now I’ve been extremely patient and made it a point to not jump to any premature conclusions about Ye’ & his antics," adding that he'd mishandled similar incidents involving his brother. "But now this (expletive) is next level, futuristic Sambo, Hopping Bob, Stephen off Django (expletive)...Ye!!!!" The Kanye show: West swears, references Superman in 10-minute Oval Office rant Reaction: NRA loved Kanye's Oval Office monologue. Everyone else? Not so much The rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., revealed he'd turned down West's invitation to join him at the White House and called the meeting the "most repulsive, disgraceful, embarrassing act of desperation & auctioning off of one’s soul to gain power I’ve ever seen." (Had he gone and West had behaved that "spinelessly," T.I. said he would have felt "compelled to slap the (expletive) out of you, bro – for the people!") After accusing West of "bootlicking on a whole new level," he declared in his social post, "I refuse to associate myself with something so vile, weak,& inconsiderate to the effect this has on the greater good of ALL OUR PEOPLE!!!!" Next he addressed Kanye fans: "To all the people who follow Ye musically, socially, or even personally....who are confused, heartbroken, infuriated.... Let me make this clear... THIS (expletive) AINT COOL!!!" The bottom line: "WE ARE NOT ON HIS MIND AS HE MAKES THESE COMMENTS AND DECISIONS. Don’t follow this puppet." Before dropping the mic, T.I. declared, "As long as I’ve lived I’ve learned that it benefits a man nothing at all to gain the world, if to do so, he must lose his soul. We just saw Mr.West’s soul on auction. If you listen closely you can hear the tears of our ancestors hit the floor." Later, in a video posted by TMZ Friday morning, when asked what T.I. would have discussed with the president, he said "the blatant disregard and disrespect for my people and all people of color." He also mentioned family separations: "the children that have been ripped away from their parents at the border."<doc-sep>Sometimes a “Saturday Night Live” cold open is a genuine surprise, a distillation of recent history that comes completely out of left field. And then sometimes the events of a past week are outrageous enough that they demand an obvious approach. (In other words, if you were awaiting a sketch about Nikki Haley’s resignation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, prepare to be disappointed.) In his first “S.N.L.” appearance of the season, Alec Baldwin returned to his recurring role as President Trump to help recreate the strange Oval Office meeting that transpired on Thursday between the president and the rapper Kanye West. Baldwin opened the meeting by announcing, “Thank you all for joining us today for this important discussion. It’s in no way a publicity stunt. This is a serious private conversation between three friends, plus 50 reporters with cameras.”<doc-sep>
(CNN) — Comedian Dave Chappelle said in an upcoming CNN interview, taped last week, that although he supports Kanye West, the rapper “shouldn’t say all that s***” aligning himself with President Donald Trump. West tweeted a picture of a Make America Great Again hat last month with a caption calling for the abolition of the 13th Amendment, which freed slaves in the United States but allowed for the indentured servitude of convicted criminals. West has alleged that “to take the fathers out the home and promote welfare … is a Democratic plan” and that slavery was “a choice.” In an interview with CNN’s Van Jones and 2018 Democratic Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous, set to air at 7 p.m. ET Saturday, Jones asked Chappelle what he thought of West’s recent statements against the Democratic Party. “First of all, you know, Kanye’s the artist, man,” Chappelle said in the interview, which was taped before West’s meeting with Trump at the White House on Thursday. “And he’s a genius.” “I think the angle he’s seeing things from is about the division that he sees. And – and he’s not inconsistent with what he’s saying,” Chappelle added, citing a previous instance of West reappropriating the Confederate flag. In 2013, West wore a patch of the Confederate flag on his jacket and told Los Angeles radio station 97.1 AMP, “The Confederate flag represented slavery in a way … So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. It’s my flag now.” Chappelle stressed that he personally supported West and trusted his intentions, but that the rapper shouldn’t be promoting that kind of rhetoric. “I’m not mad at Kanye. That’s my brother – I love him, I support him,” Chappelle said. “But, you know, I don’t have to agree with everything that he says … I just trust him as a person of intent. But yeah, he shouldn’t say all that s***.” Chappelle also predicted that the real implications of the Trump presidency will be felt after the fact, comparing it to saying things during an argument with a spouse that can’t be taken back. “The thing that’s scary about this presidency is after it,” Chapelle said. “I don’t know if you’ve been married before or had a girlfriend and said something in a fight that was so wrong.” “And then after that … we’re still family, we’re still around each other,” Chappelle added. “But man, I sure did say all that s***, didn’t I?”