Kanye West staged an impromptu meeting with President-Elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower Tuesday morning.
A C-SPAN camera captured the rapper entering the Manhattan building and getting on an elevator. A spokesperson for president-elect Trump, Hope Hicks, confirmed the meeting with Business Insider politics editor Oliver Darcy, though no details were given about what West and Trump were discussing.
Hicks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
.@kanyewest appears with Donald Trump at Trump Tower, says “I just wanted to take a picture” https://t.co/hBNZQlva7T https://t.co/No7Jh6LUpp
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 13, 2016
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West and Trump later returned to the Trump Tower lobby together. “He’s a good man,” the president-elect said of the rapper. “We’ve been friends for a long time.” When asked what they spoke about, Trump said, “Life.” West, in turn, did not answer questions about his joking 2020 presidential run or if he would perform at the inauguration. “I just wanted to take a picture right now,” he said.
This marks West’s second public appearance since he was discharged from the hospital in late November after being admitted for exhaustion. According to reports, West was experiencing nightmares and sleepless nights in the weeks leading up to his hospitalization. Not only was the rapper in the midst of his Saint Pablo tour, but he was reportedly still shaken by the experience of learning that robbers had tied up his wife, Kim Kardashian West, in a Paris Hotel in October.
Prior to his hospitalization, West canceled the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour following several strange concerts. Notably, during a show in San Jose, he unleashed a 25-minute political screed where he said that if he’d voted in the 2016 election, he “would’ve voted for Trump.”
SOURCE: Rolling Stone – Jon Blistein
Kanye West is holding a 15-minute sit-down with President-elect Donald Trump.
The rapper swept into Trump Tower with an entourage which included his mother-in-law’s 35-year-old boyfriend shortly after 9am for the meeting with the man he recently called a ‘genius’.
TMZ reported that the meeting was at Kanye’s request and that Trump had agreed to it.
The 39-year-old, who until recently had been recovering from a nervous breakdown in hospital in Los Angeles, was taken upstairs without speaking to reporters.
It is unclear if he is meeting Trump or another member of the transition team, or part of the Trump business empire. The tower also has other tenants.
Trump’s transition team is currently looking for performers at the inauguration on January 20, and the addition of one of rap’s biggest names would clearly be a huge coup.
West spoke in the wake of Trump’s victory of Hillary Clinton to back the Republican.
‘If I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted Trump,’ he told a crowd during a concert in San Jose, California.
He also told the crowd that Trump was a ‘genius’ for winning.
He then added: ‘Specifically to black people, stop focusing on racism. This world is racist, ok? Let’s stop being distracted. It’s just a f***ing fact, we are in a racist country, period.’
The endorsement of the president-elect reportedly earned him boos. California voted heavily for defeated Hillary Clinton.
Among his entourage were Kris Jenner’s boyfriend, Corey Gamble, 35, who had been accompanying West during his trip to New York.
The visit to Trump tower came after West was seen in the city – his first public appearances since being released from hospital after the breakdown.
SOURCE: Daily Mail
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