When Kanye West was seen in a "Make America Great Again" hat after "Saturday Night Live," he caught the attention of President Donald Trump once again.
"Like many, I don't watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) - no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems," Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon. "Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told 'no'), was great. He's leading the charge!"
Trump’s claim about West being told not to wear the hat after the show echos some of a pro-Trump speech the rapper delivered after “SNL.”
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People reported that Chris Rock recorded video on his Instagram Story of West's speech. West wears a button down shirt, charcoal grey pants and a MAGA hat in the video, which cuts in at varying times of the speech.
“I wanna cry right now. Black man in America, you’re supposed to keep what you feel inside right now,” he said. “And the liberals bully you and tell you what you can and cannot wear, where you and they can’t not stare. And they look at me and say, ‘It’s not fair. How the hell did you get here?’
“Actually, blacks weren’t always Democrats,” he said as an organ played in the background. “It’s like a plan they did to take the fathers out the homes and promote welfare. Does anybody know about that? That’s the Democratic plan.”
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Claps were sparse after West’s remark.
“And what this shows is we can’t be controlled by monolithic thought. You can’t always have when you have a black subject matter like Cosby that you have to have a black comedian talk about it.”
Related: Kanye West silent on Trump's empathy for others, says 'liberals can’t bully me' on Kimmel
“It’s so many times that I talk to a white person about this, and they say, ‘How could you support Trump? He’s racist.’ Well, if I was concerned about racism, I would have moved out of America a long time ago,” West said at another point in Rock’s video. “We don’t just make our decisions off of racism. I’m a break it down to you right now: If someone inspires me and I connect with them, I don’t have to believe in all they policies, but this man is a builder and when I said I’m running in 2020, all my smart friends talked so much (expletive) about me. And when I saw that man win, I said, ‘See, I told you. I could have been there.’”
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West was met with sporadic boos and at one point someone yelled out, “(Expletive Trump).”
West responded, “Now you got a situation where we need to have a dialogue and not a diatribe because if you want something to change, it’s not going to change by saying, ‘F— that person.’ Try love. Try love. Try love. Try love.
“Thank y’all for giving me this platform,” West said. “I know some of y’all don’t agree. But y’all be goin’ at that man neck a lot, and I don’t think it’s actually that helpful. I think the universe has balance. Ninety percent of news are liberal. Ninety percent of TV, L.A., New York, writers, actors, rappers, musicians. So it’s easy to make it seem like it’s so, so, so one-sided. And I feel kind of free. I thought this country said I couldn’t be me.”
Credit: Brent N. Clarke
Credit: Brent N. Clarke
The speech was given right after the show and while end credits rolled, but was cut for time.
West doubled down on wearing the hat in an Instagram post Sunday afternoon. In the photo, West wears the hat while on a private jet.
“This represents good and America becoming whole again,” West captioned a the post. “We will no longer outsource to other countries. We build factories here in America and create jobs. We will provide jobs for all who are free from prisons as we abolish the 13th amendment. Message sent with love.”
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