President Trump thanked Kanye West on Friday for the “Yeezus” rapper’s show of support on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
“Thank you to Kanye West and the fact that he is willing to tell the TRUTH,” Trump tweeted.
“One new and great FACT – African American unemployment is the lowest ever recorded in the history of our Country. So honored by this. Thank you Kanye for your support. It is making a big difference!”
West said late Thursday that he wanted to back Trump, in part, because entertainers and African Americans are too often pigeonholed to only support Democrats.
“Just as a musician, African-American guy out in Hollywood – all these different things, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me and then told me every time 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, because blacks, we’re supposed to have a monolithic thought – we can only be Democrats,” West told “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
But West – who famously tore into GOP President George W. Bush’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina – seemed caught off-guard when Kimmel brought up the Trump-ordered separation of asylum seekers from their children at the southern border.
“There are families being torn apart at the border of this country,” Kimmel said. “Whether we like his personality or not, his actions are what matter. 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 West went silent, looked up and folded his arms as nervous laughter came from the studio audience.
Kimmel had to cut short the awkward moment: “Why don’t we take a break.”