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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kanye West watches a NBA basketball game in Los Angeles last year.
President Donald Trump thanked rapper Kanye West for sharing his “dragon energy” today, a thing that really happened.
“Thank you Kanye, very cool!” Trump said on Twitter, retweeting a West post from earlier in the day.
“You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him,” West wrote. “We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.”
In a tweet a day earlier, West described dragon energy as “Natural born leaders Very instinctive Great foresight.” West responded to the president’s tweet with a screenshot of the posting on his phone.
West fired off a barrage of bizarre tweets today that went viral. He said he’s meeting with “Peter Teal,” referring to the billionaire Trump supporter and venture capitalist. He later corrected the spelling for Peter Thiel. A person close to Thiel said he has spoken with West in the past, and they have each expressed interest in meeting again. West also wrote that he wants to meet with Google’s Larry Page and Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook, who met with Trump in the Oval Office today.
Amid the tweetstorm, West shared his plans to start a venture capital fund called Yeezy VC to invest in food, clothing, shelter and communications.
“We’d be a strategic investor. Not just a VC,” he wrote. He would follow a path taken by many celebrities looking to diversify their wealth, including Jessica Alba, Jay Z and Ashton Kutcher.
About an hour after tweeting about Trump, the rapper followed up to say that his wife, reality television star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, had called and wanted him to make clear that he’s not fully aligned with the president.
“I don’t agree with everything Trump does. I don’t agree 100% with anyone but myself,” West said.
After Trump tweeted his appreciation, West followed up with a photo of a red “Make America Great Again” hat that had been signed by the president.
West’s praise wasn’t limited to one side of the political aisle. He also tweeted: “If your friend jumps off the bridge you don’t have to do the same. Ye being Ye is a fight for you to be you. For people In my life the idea of Trump is pretty much a 50 50 split but I don’t tell a Hillary supporter not to support Hillary I love Hillary too.”
Following Trump’s election, West visited him at Trump Tower in New York in December 2016, telling reporters then that he “just wanted to take a picture” with the president-elect. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters today that she was unaware of any subsequent conversations between Trump and West.
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