"Honored"
Stigall asked the twice-impeached former president whether he thought the rapper now known as Ye was getting a "fair shake" – adding that he felt that Ye was a "marked man" since publicly associating himself with Trump all those years ago "no matter what he’s said or done since" – to which Trump replied: "Well, I was very honored, because I didn’t know him that well but I liked him. I obviously got along with him very well, and I was very honored in a sense, because he said all of those great things about me on Tucker Carlson."
"He made some statements, rough statements, on Jewish; you heard them and you know them well, and they’re saying that was the reason. So then you ask, would it be the same if he didn’t say all those good things about Trump, you just don’t know," he added.
Trump thinks Kanye will "be fine"
When asked about his predictions for Ye's future after being dropped by big brands due to his comments, Trump said, "He’ll be fine. I think he’ll be fine. He’s a very different kind of a guy, and it was very interesting to hear him on Tucker Carlson, you know, you never hear him in long sentences, right?" in reference to Ye's appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. "He was actually very sharp and very smart. I was impressed by a lot of what he said," Trump added.
"He talked about life, he talked about health, he feels that these are things that the Black community is being lied to about those things," Stigall said, to which Trump responded: "Look, people go after people who are conservatives. The Republicans ought to get tougher, the Republicans aren’t tough enough, they allow it to happen."
Social Media Backlash
As expected, there have been many comments about Trump's defense of the rapper, with many social media users suggesting that Trump won't condemn him because he sees himself in him! "Trump can’t actually convince himself to condemn Kayne West because he agrees with him," one Twitter user wrote in the comments section to the above clip of the interview. "Everything is always about him," wrote another. "Of course he is honored, Trump is a bigot just like Kanye," wrote another Twitter user. "Trump is very honored that an anti-Semite said nice things about him. FFS," someone else commented.
"So Trump is trying to say that companies disenfranchised themselves from Kanye, not because of his 'rough statements on Jewish', but because Kanye said some 'nice' things about him?" questioned another. "Why am I not surprised that Trump is so self-centered as to suggest Kanye lost that business because of his pro-Trump statements, and not because of literal anti-Semitism," someone else commented. "Totally sickening! As long as he says good things about dumpy trumpy it’s ok to say bad things about the Jews??? Ugly ugly man!" exclaimed another. "I have a hard time following his train of thought," another user wrote.