The latest chapter in the Kanye West Trump saga took another interesting turn on Thursday night, as the hip-hop star decided to sit down for a chat about the whole situation and more on Jimmy Kimmel Live, just a week after his wife Kim Kardashian stopped by the show.
“I feel dragon energy in the air,” Kimmel said during his opening monologue. “We can do two hours on his Twitter alone.”
As for how the late-night host managed to book the controversial rapper for a rare interview, Kimmel admitted that it was actually all West’s idea.
“People keep asking, ‘How did you book Kanye?’ The answer is: We didn’t,” Kimmel said. “You don’t book Kanye. When Kanye decides that he’s booked he just lets you know.”
Watch: Jimmy Kimmel asks about the Kanye West Trump love
After Kimmel introduced West to the audience and thanked the rapper for giving him a pair of Yeezy sneakers, the interview kicked into overdrive in typical West fashion. The late-night host asked West if he’d lend his designing talents to President Donald Trump by creating the uniforms for Space Force. “I’m into designing,” West coyly responded.
Kimmel went on to ask the hip-hop star turned fashion mogul about his wife and what he thought about her visit with President Trump. West praised Kardashian for her prison reform activism and for helping Alice Marie Johnson. “She’s super passionate about it,” West said. “It was amazing for her to see that dream come true.”
Since Trump has been accused of having issues with sexual harassment and of being invovled in several affairs over the years, Kimmel asked West if he was worried about his wife meeting one-on-one with the president. “Were you ever concerned over seeing her alone in the Oval Office with President Trump,” Kimmel jokingly asked. “Well, he is a player,” West said with a laugh.
The late-night host proceeded to press West further about Trump, particularly whether he thinks the former Apprentice host is actually a good president. West didn’t directly answer the question, instead comparing the situation to how he feels about a family member who’s done bad things.
“It’s funny, in this world that we live in, there’s two main motivating forces, and I tweet about it all the time, it’s love or fear,” West said. “You can’t explain love. My cousin is locked up for murder, and I love him. So he did a bad thing, but I still love him.”
West went on to explain why he’s supported Trump, citing that he didn’t enjoy feeling pressured to vote for another candidate by the people around him, the media, liberals and members of the hip-hop world. However, West also admitted that he actually enjoys some of the backlash he gets.
“Just as a musician, African American, guy out in Hollywood, all these different things, everyone around me trying to pick my candidate for me and told me everytime I said I liked Trump that I couldn’t say it out loud or my career would be over, I’d get kicked out of the black community,” West said.”It took me a year and a half to have the confidence to stand upand put on the hat, no matter what the consequences were.”
“It represented overcoming fear and doing what you felt no matter what anyone said and saying, ‘You can’t bully me,'” he added. “Liberals can’t bully me, news can’t bully me, the hip-hop community, they can’t bully me, because at that point, if I’m afraid to be me, I’m no longer Ye. That’s what makes Ye.I actually quite enjoy when people are mad at me about certain things. I actually quite enjoy it.”
From there the interview turned into a showcase of West’s musings on everything from Galileo to simulation theory. But when West began advocating for everyone to show each other love as a way to cure the world’s issues, Kimmel asked the rapper how he could think that way and still support Trump, particularly when his administration has been criticized for child seperation at the border.
“I think that’s a beautiful thought, but just in literal turns, there are families being torn apart at the border of this country,” Kimmel said. “There are literally families being torn apart as a result of what this president is doing. I think that we cannot forget that. Whether we like his personality or not, his actions are really what matters.”
“You so famously and so powerfully said George Bush doesn’t care about black people, it makes me wonder what makes you think that Donald Trump does or any people at all?” the late-night host added. West did not respond to the question, sitting in silence with his arms folded, prompting Kimmel to say, “Why don’t we take a break we’ll come right back.”
