Donald Trump Reportedly Wanted A$AP Rocky To Thank Him, But The Rapper Stopped Returning His Texts
Donald Trump publicly worked on A$AP Rocky’s behalf to help get the rapper out of jail. Reportedly, the president’s motivation wasn’t entirely altruistic. A source told Yahoo News that Trump was hoping to leverage the situation to gain traction with black voters leading up to his 2020 run for re-election. The problem with the plan is that now that Rocky is free, he hasn’t been responding to the White House anymore.
Rocky was arrested in June and spent a month in detention for his part in a street fight. Five days after being detained, a “fixer” for high-profile entertainers reached out to Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier, two of Donald Trump’s most well-known black supporters. The group worked behind the scenes to get the issue brought to the attention of the president via Jared Kushner, knowing that Trump had taken on prison reform as one of his key political platforms. At the same time, Kim Kardashian reportedly also asked the White House to take on the case.
The effort didn’t have any strings attached, according to Scott, except that Rocky or his team should express gratitude.
“The White House didn’t ask for anything. There were no conditions attached, but my condition and Kareem’s condition was that all I’m asking for you guys to do is say thank you,” Scott said.
In mid-July, without any progress made on Rocky’s release, Trump spoke with reporters about the situation.
Trump claimed that “many, many” people in the African American community reached out to him for help with the situation.
“So I personally don’t know A$AP Rocky, but I can tell you he has a lot of support from the African American community in this country,” Trump said.
Despite his show of public support, the people working to get Rocky released felt that the rapper and his legal team were being too casual about the White House’s efforts.
“I was like, man, you ungrateful motherf***ers, you. I can’t believe you…. We didn’t ask you guys for nothing other than for you guys to be grateful,” Lanier told Rocky’s attorney. “We just want you guys to be appreciative and say thank you.”
Trump continued to tweet and lobby on Rocky’s behalf but to no avail, even going so far as to offer to vouch for his bail. Finally, Rocky was released on August 2 after the trial concluded. Reportedly, however, Scott, Lanier, Trump, or anyone in White House have yet to hear back from the rapper or his team with the promised “thank you.”
BREAKING: A Swedish court finds American rapper A$AP Rocky guilty of assault for his role in a June 30 street brawl in Stockholm. https://t.co/q4Z9JPNb4g
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 14, 2019
