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Donald Trump apparently had some pretty weird ideas during his presidency about what constitutes “national unity.”
On Tuesday’s episode of “Watch What Happens Live,” Alyssa Farah Griffin ― who served as White House communications director from April to December 2020 ― claimed Trump wanted “to unify the country” during her tenure by hosting one of the most divisive entertainers in recent history.
Griffin offered up her account when a caller asked about her “wildest” experience on the job.
“This is going to be dark,” she warned. “To be honest, one day he wanted to have Kanye West come and do a church service on the White House lawn to ‘unify the country,’ and I can think of few things less unifying than that.”
“We were like, ‘Not the time or place, sir,’” Griffin continued.
The Chicago rapper now known as Ye started holding “Sunday Services” in 2019, but it’s not especially likely he would’ve united the country, as he was already promoting Trump on a regular basis as a new MAGA figurehead.
Ye famously endorsed Trump in 2016, posing for photos with him at Trump Tower in New York City ahead of a private meeting. The Grammy winner went on to don a “Make America Great Again” hat for years to come, and was invited to the White House in 2018.
Ye told Trump at the time that he was “on his hero’s journey right now,” but later said he didn’t vote for Trump, or anyone else, in 2016. Ye claimed in 2020 that he no longer supported Trump.
Oliver Contreras/Pool/Getty Images
However, that didn’t stop Ye from having dinner with Trump as recently as 2022, even after the former president publicly mocked Ye for what he called the rapper’s “loony tendencies.” Ye has been open about his experiences living with bipolar disorder.
Ye launched a presidential bid of his own in 2020, but only garnered an estimated 60,000 votes. In 2022, he caused a furor by espousing antisemitic views in numerous interviews, subsequently losing a fortune after various companies and other parties distanced themselves from him. White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was also present at the rapper’s 2022 dinner with Trump. (Ye eventually issued a Hebrew-language apology for his antisemitic comments.)
Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee for president, is set to debate Vice President Kamala Harris, the potential new Democratic nominee, later this summer.