U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Kanye West to the White House on Thursday, and said the rapper “has been a friend for a long time.”
West credited Trump with stopping a potential war with North Korea and is encouraging Trump to swap his usual Air Force One jet for a hydrogen-powered plane.
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After running up to hug Trump in the Oval Office, West gave a nearly 10-minute long speech. He said he was pressured not to wear his red “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat.
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“My dad and my mom separated so there was not a lot of male energy in my home and also I’m married to a family where, you know, there’s not a lot of male energy. It’s beautiful, though,” West said.
West went on to talk about how his MAGA hat makes him feel like part of something.
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West, who has been vocal about his support of Trump since after he was elected in 2016, shared the password to his phone (which is 000000) and announced that he had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. The rapper said he was merely sleep deprived.
“Let’s stop worrying about the future, all we have is today,” he said. “Trump is on his hero’s journey right now. He might not have thought he’d have a crazy motherf**ker like (me).”
West revealed that he had made a new version of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat that loses the “Again” part.
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“We aren’t a side. We are one unit. We are a country. We are one moment in history,” West said.
The I Love It rapper also said that many people believe that if someone’s black, then that person has to be a Democrat.
WATCH BELOW: Kanye West: People expect if you’re black you need to be a Democrat
The White House said that Trump and West would discuss a range of issues, including manufacturing, prison reform, preventing gang violence and reducing violence in Chicago, which is where West grew up.
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Trump said he’s “open-minded” about stop-and-frisk policing.
Trump earlier this week called on Chicago to adopt the strategy, in which large numbers of people are temporarily detained, questioned and sometimes searched for drugs and weapons.
Trump had said that “stop-and-frisk works.”
But West told Trump that this strategy is detrimental. “We feel stop-and-frisk does not help relationships in the city,” West said.
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Trump said he’d been willing to “look at it,” and saying, “They have to do something.”
Stop-and-frisk was used extensively in New York City until it was deemed unconstitutional because of its impact on minority residents. Chicago reached an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois in 2015 to curb the practice.
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During one pause in West’s comments, Trump said: “I tell you what that was pretty impressive.”
West then said, “It was from the soul. I just channelled it.”
Trump said that West “can speak for me any time he wants.”
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“He’s a smart cookie. He gets it,” Trump said adding that West “could very well be” a future presidential candidate.
“Only after 2024,” West clarified.
Trump told Fox and Friends Thursday: “He’s a different kind of guy and that’s OK with me.”
Trump recently tweeted praise for West, who closed a Saturday Night Live show wearing a MAGA hat and delivering an unscripted pro-Trump message after the credits rolled.
West is married to reality television star Kim Kardashian West, who pushed Trump to grant a pardon for a drug offender this year.
—With files from the Associated Press
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