Kanye West had a lot to say about Donald Trump during his Thursday, August 9, appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but the rapper was left speechless after the host asked a question about the president’s compassion for human beings.
“There are families being torn apart at the border of this country. … Whether we like his personality or not, his actions are what matter,” Jimmy Kimmel, 50, said. “You so famously, and so powerfully said, ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.’ What makes you think that Donald Trump does — or any people at all?”
The 41-year-old has been vocal for his love for Trump in the past, calling the president his “brother” on Twitter in April. After West remained silent for a moment, Kimmel broke the ice and cut to a commercials.
“Why don’t we take a break,” Kimmel said as West began to smile.
Despite having no answer for the late-night host’s question about Trump’s empathy for others, West had plenty to say about politics earlier in the show.
After Kimmel asked if West was “concerned” about the Yeezy designer’s wife, Kim Kardashian, being “alone in the Oval Office with President Trump” when she met with the commander in chief about pardoning then-imprisoned Alice Johnson, West let out a laugh and replied, “Well, he is a player.”
Kimmel then asked if the Grammy winner thinks Trump “is a good president.”
“As a musician, African American, guy out in Hollywood, all these different things — you know, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me. And then told me every time I said liked Trump that I couldn’t say it out loud or my career would be over,” West told Kimmel. “I’d get kicked out of the black community because blacks, we are supposed to have a monolithic thought, we can only be Democrats and all.”
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. And I actually quite enjoy when people actually are mad at me about certain things.”
West made headlines back in December 2016 after he flew to New York City to meet with Trump. A source told Us Weekly at the time that the two men spoke about “life and exchanged ideas.”
