Former President Donald Trump deemed Ye, the hip hop artist formerly known as Kanye West, a “seriously troubled man” after receiving blowback over a meeting with him at Mar-a-Lago.
“So I help a seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black, Ye (Kanye West), who has been decimated in his business and virtually everything else, and who has always been good to me, by allowing his request for a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, alone, so that I can give him very much needed ‘advice’,” Trump wrote in a message posted Saturday to his Truth Social account. “He shows up with 3 people, two of which I didn’t know, the other a political person who I haven’t seen in years. I told him don’t run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win. Fake News went CRAZY!”
Several prominent Jewish leaders, including David Friedman, who served as Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2017-2021, have been critical of the former president for the meeting hosted at his Palm Beach, Florida estate.
The dinner was also attended by white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
TRUMP’S FORMER AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL BLASTS MEETING WITH YE, NICK FUENTES: ‘YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS’
Surrounded by members of the press and others, American rapper and producer Kanye West stands as he talks with President Donald Trump in the White House’s Oval Office, Washington, DC, on October 11, 2018. West wears a red baseball cap that reads "Make America Great Again," Trump’s campaign slogan.
(Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)
Friedman said just like he had condemned former President Barack Obama for associating with antisemites Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright, Ye and Fuentes’ visit with Trump should be considered “unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, in the first 2024 presidential campaign video released by the rap artist on Thursday, Ye gave a “Mar-a-Lago debrief” from his Los Angeles headquarters, revealing that, “I think the thing that Trump was most perturbed about was me asking him to be my vice president.” Ye claimed that Trump was also “caught off guard” by the fact that he “walked in with intelligence.”
American rapper and producer Kanye West embraces President Donald Trump in the White House’s Oval Office, Washington DC, on October 11, 2018.
(Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)
“So, Trump is really impressed by Nick Fuentes,” Ye added. “And Nick Fuentes, unlike so many of the lawyers and so many people, that he was left with on his 2020 campaign, he’s actually a loyalist.”
Ye said that “as someone who loves Trump” he asked the former president why he did not free more of the Jan. 6 protesters. But according to the rapper, Trump gave some “would be mob-esque” excuse.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event at his Mar-a-Lago home on November 15, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump announced that he was seeking another term in office and officially launched his 2024 campaign.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“He goes into the story about all that he went through to get Alice Johnson out of jail, and that he didn’t do it for Kim, but he did it for me,” West said of his conversation with Trump. “But then he goes on to say that Kim [Kardashian] is a [bleeped out profanity] and you could tell her I said that. And I was thinking like, that’s the mother of my children.”
Nick Fuentes speaks during a "Stop the Steal" rally outside the Governor’s Mansion in Georgia on November 19th, 2020.
(Zach Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Johnson was a 63-year-old whom Trump granted clemency in 2018. Ye went on to say that Christians in America know Trump is a conservative and will demand that all policies be held “directly to the Bible.”
“When Trump started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was gonna lose, I mean has that ever worked for anyone in history?” Ye said. “That I’m going to lose? Hold on, you’re talking to Ye.”
