Kanye West is appearing as a guest of David Letterman on the upcoming batch of episodes of Letterman’s Netflix talk show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. The Daily Beast viewed the interview, in which West discusses his support of Donald Trump, his beef with Drake, his mother’s death, and his struggles with mental health, ahead of the episode’s release May 31.
The Daily Beast describes it as “one of the best interviews Letterman has ever conducted,” even though the talk show host, throughout his long run hosting late night shows on NBC and CBS, was never known for having lots of guests who come from the hip hop world.
In the trailer for the upcoming season, West can be seen wearing his hair dyed blond, and Kim Kardashian is visible in the audience.
Per the website’s account, Letterman does not directly ask West about President Trump, but the rapper brings up the subject himself. And when Letterman asks whether West voted for Trump, he replies that he’s never voted in his life. Letterman then tells him that he doesn’t “have a say in this.”
“This is like my thing with Trump—we don’t have to feel the same way, but we have the right to feel what we feel,” West says in the interview, adding that the MAGA hat he wears, including in an Oval Office meeting with the president last year, is less about political support for Trump than an attempt to “break the stigma” around support of him.
West went on to claim that Trump supporters are “bullied” for their views.
West, whose best-known political statement prior to the Trump era was the time he declared that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a Hurricane Katrina telethon in 2005, met with Trump at Trump Tower during the presidential transition in late 2016, and began to more vocally praise the president the following year. This led up to his meeting with Trump at the White House in October of 2018.
Letterman: “Did you vote for Trump?” @kanyewest : “I’ve never voted in my life.”
Letterman: “Then you don’t have a say in this.” https://t.co/7CnwHdThRq
— Matt Wilstein (@mattwilstein) May 24, 2019
Also in the interview, Trump addresses his mental health.
“If you guys want these crazy ideas and these crazy stages and this crazy music and this crazy way of thinking,” West says, “there’s a chance if might come from a crazy person.” He also acknowledges that he has been off of his medication for more than a year.
Other guests on Letterman’s show this year include Tiffany Haddish, Ellen DeGeneres, and Melinda Gates.
