CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota on Monday asked if it’s “time to start worrying” about Kanye West after the rapper delivered a pro-Trump message during an appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” followed by a widely criticized tweet in which he called for the 13th Amendment to be abolished.
“I just am wondering if it’s time to start worrying about Kanye, because he does go on, sometimes, nonsensical rants,” Camerota said on “New Day.”
“I haven’t heard this whole one, so I don’t know if its nonsensical,” she said of West’s comments on NBC. “And look, he has taken a break, I think, for some stress-related issues. So I’m concerned.”
{mosads}Co-anchor John Berman suggested West’s comments on “Saturday Night Live” were largely the same as actor Robert De Niro saying “f— Trump” at the Tony Awards, but Camerota suggested West’s had more “offshoots and rabbit holes.”
“I look at it as yet another entertainer deciding to get political on company time, as it were,” Berman said.
West, who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat during promotional ads for the show, did not make any overt political statements during his two performances on Saturday, but delivered a pro-Trump message onstage while the show was off the air.
West pushed back on criticism of his support for President Trump and was booed loudly by the audience in a video recorded and posted by comedian and “SNL” alum Chris Rock, who was in the crowd.
“There’s so many times I talk to, like, a white person about this and they say, ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist,’ ” West said. “Well, uh, if I was concerned about racism, I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago.”
West’s appearance on the show drew praise from Trump, who often holds up West’s backing when discussing support among the black community.
On Sunday, West issued a string of tweets in which he criticized the amendment that abolished slavery, at first calling for it to be abolished itself before clarifying that he wanted to see it “amended.”
The rapper’s initial comments came in a tweet showing a photo of himself on an airplane wearing a “Make America Great Again” hats, which West suggested “represents good and making America whole again.”