The Atlantic

Kanye West Visits the White House—and Says Trump Makes Him Feel Like a Man

During his lunchtime visit, the rapper zeroed in on a primary motivation for his long-running support of the president.
Source: Evan Vucci / AP

The fiendish kinship between Donald Trump and Kanye West is not a . The Chicago-born rapper has been outspoken about his support for the president for . West, a narcissist whose commitment to bolstering his own celebrity is eclipsed only by a paradoxical obsession with the ideal of nonconformity, has fashioned the red Make America Great Again Hat into something of an intellectual helmet. Thursday afternoon, a MAGA hat–clad West arrived at the White House for a working lunch with the president. Along with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the pair was a number of topics that the rapper has identified as his areas of expertise: criminal-justice reform, job creation in Chicago, as well as gang violence in the city. Despite West’s that he can inspire “dialogue” between Trump and racial-justice activists like Colin Kaepernick, there was no reason to believe this meeting of minds would result in much beyond what Trump and West’s union has already created: chaotic news cycles and the spread of harmful misinformation.

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