White House senior adviser Jared Kushner downplayed a recent meeting he had with rapper-turned-presidential candidate Kanye West.
During a White House briefing on Thursday, Kushner said West was just a “friend” and that last week’s meeting was an impromptu gathering.
“Kanye’s been a friend of mine for — I’ve known him for about 10 years,” Kushner said. “We both happened to be in Colorado, and so, we got together, and we had a great discussion about a lot of things.”
“He has some great ideas for what he’d like to see happen in the country, and that’s why he has the candidacy that he’s been doing,” he continued. “But again, there’s a lot of issues that the president’s championed that he admires, and it was just great to have a friendly discussion.”
Jared Kushner on meeting with @kanyewest: “Kanye’s been a friend of mine…we got together and we had a great discussion…he has some great ideas for what he’d like to see happen in the country…”
Full video here: https://t.co/dyA5TDcgR9 pic.twitter.com/W4Aqhm90Sf
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 13, 2020
Much has been made of the meeting between West and President Trump’s son-in-law as concerns have been raised that the outsider presidential candidate, who will appear on several state ballots under the Birthday Party moniker, is running in an attempt to snag votes away from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Trump, who met with West at the Oval Office in October 2018, has suggested that West wouldn’t have much trouble pulling voters from Biden and recently praised the Grammy winner, saying he was a fan of him and his family.
“I like him,” Trump said last week. “He’s always been very nice to me. I get along with him very well. I like him. I like his wife.”
