Kanye apparently likes Trump's personality but is in the dark on politics. Photo / Getty Images
Kanye apparently likes Trump's personality but is in the dark on politics. Photo / Getty Images
Rapper Kanye West recently visited President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, where he wore a "Make America Great Again" hat and said "I love this guy" as he embraced the commander-in-chief.
But! His wife, reality-TV star Kim Kardashian West, says that her husband's politics and support for Trump havebeen "misconstrued" and that he "just happens to like Donald Trump's personality, but doesn't know about the politics."
Kardashian offered some serious spin of West's public displays of Trumpism at a Wednesday-night event focused on criminal justice reform - a cause she's advocated for - in which she was interviewed onstage by CNN commentator Van Jones. Kardashian said West is "not the best communicator" and that what he says in private is very different from how he is publicly interpreted.
Jones joked that Kardashian was being a "Kanye translator," to which she responded: "He does need a translator. For real."
So it seems that this is the Kanye-to-English decoded message: West's visit to the Oval Office wasn't a show of support for Trump's policies (which she says West doesn't know about), but for the "freedom" to like a guy even though he isn't popular among his friends.
"What he fights for is the right to like what he wants to like, even if it's different from what you like," Kardashian sort-of explained at the event, which was sponsored by Variety and Rolling Stone. "He never said, 'OK, I know what's going on with immigration, and I know this and I know that.'
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. Photo / Getty Images
"If he really knew, he would feel very compassionate about it. He never said that he supports that. I know it's very confusing because when you see someone wearing a red hat you would think that they are supporting that. But he's just fighting for free thought and freedom to like a person even if it's not the popular decision."
West himself decided to take a breather from politics following that White House confab. "My eyes are now wide open and now realize I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in," he tweeted late last month. "I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!"
Kardashian says she could have taken to social media to clarify her husband's thinking behind his meeting with the president, but she figured she would just let things play out. "I do believe people have their own journeys," she told Jones. "I know his heart, so I know that one day what he's been trying to say will come out. It's taken a little long, so I'm jumping in and helping him out, but I know his heart so I never stress too much."
