Updated: October 11, 2018 4:22 PM [ET] | Originally published: October 11, 2018 2:00 PM EDT ;
W hen rapper Kanye West visited with President Donald Trump at the White House Thursday, he had a few things to say.
In an impassioned but sometimes difficult to follow 10-minute speech, West talked about the “male energy” of Trump’s 2016 campaign, the U.S. relationship with North Korea and his belief that he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder.
“I tell you what, that was pretty impressive,” Trump said after West had finished speaking. “It was from the soul,” West responded. “I just channeled it.”
The Kanye West live stream above shows the pre-lunch meeting was also attended by former U.S. football player Jim Brown and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner .
West has been publicly supportive of Trump for several months, giving a similar speech to the audience after a performance on Saturday Night Live that was not aired.
Here are some of the highlights from the full transcript of what Kanye West said at the Trump meeting.
Kanye West on uncertainty surrounding his bipolar diagnosis I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was connected with a neuropsychologist that works with the athletes in the NBA and the NFL. And he looked at my brain, it’s equal on three parts, I’m gonna go ahead and drop some bombs for you. 98th percentile IQ test. I had a 75 percentile of all human beings counting eight numbers backwards, so I’m gonna work on that one. The other ones, 98 percent, Tesla, Freud. He said I wasn’t actually bipolar; I had sleep deprivation, which could cause dementia 10 to 20 years from now where I wouldn’t even remember my son’s name. So all this power I get, and I’m taking my son to the Sox game and all that, I wouldn’t even be able to remember his name from a misdiagnosis. What I’m saying is, we can empower the pharmaceuticals and make more money. That’s one thing, I’ve never stepped into a situation where I didn’t make more money. So we can empower pharmaceuticals, we can empower our factories, we can bring not only Adidas onshore but FoxCon…they have 4,000 jobs, people making $53,000 a year, and one of the things we gotta set is Ford to have the highest design. The dopest cars. The most amazing. I don’t really say dope, I don’t say negative words and try to flip ’em, we just say positive, lovely, divine, universal words. So the flyest, freshest car. So what we gotta start with is — I brought a gif with me right here. This right here is the iPlane 1. It’s a high powered airplane. This is what our president should be flying in.
Kanye West on the 13th Amendment There’s a lot of things affecting our mental health that makes us do crazy things that puts us back into that trap door called the 13th Amendment. I did say abolish, with the hat on, because why would you keep something around that’s a trap door? If you’re building a floor, the Constitution is the base of our industry, of our country, of our company. Would you build a trap door that if you mess up, that if accidentally something happens, then you fall and you end up next to the Unabomber? You gotta remove all that trap door out of the relationship. The four gentleman that wrote the 13th Amendment — and I think the way the universe works it’s perfect, we don’t have 13 floors, do we? The four gentlemen that wrote the 13th Amendment, they didn’t look like the people they were amending. Also at that point it was illegal for blacks to read, or African-Americans to read, so that meant if you actually read the amendment you’d get locked up and turned into a slave. So what I think is we don’t need sentences, we need pardons, we need to talk to people.
Kanye West on male energy I think it’s bravery that helps you beat this game called life. You know they tried to scare me to not wear this hat. My own friends. But this hat gives me a different power in a way. You know my dad and my mom separated, so I didn’t have a lot of male energy in my home. And also I’m married to a family that, you know, not a lot of male energy going on. It’s beautiful though. You know it’s something about, you know I love Hillary, I love everyone. Right. But the campaign, ‘I’m with Her’ just didn’t make me feel, as a guy, that didn’t get to see my dad all the time. Like a guy that could play catch with his son. It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. You made a Superman. That’s my favorite superhero and made a Superman cape for me. Also as a guy that looks up to you, looks up to Ralph Lauren, looks up to American industry guys, nonpolitical, no bulls–t — put the beep on it, however you wanna do it, five seconds delay — and just gets it done.
Kanye West on Adidas It’s called the Yeezy effect. I went to Casper, we had a meeting in Chicago. I said, you have to bring manufacturing onshore. Not even shore, into the core. It’s not about the borders, the core of Adidas and Chicago is the core of Middle America and we have to make Middle America strong. So I had the balls. Because I had the balls to put on this hat, this Adidas thing made me a billionaire. I could have lost 200 million dollars walking away from that deal. But I knew it was more important for me to take the chance of walking away from that deal than to have no fathers in Chicago with no homes and when we do have prison reformation — and it’s habilitation, not rehabilitation, — because we had no abilities in the first place, cause we didn’t have anyone to teach us… it’s more important than any specific deal, anything, that we bring jobs into America and that we provide a transition with mental health and the American education curriculum that Jim has worked on, Larry Hoover also has a curriculum he has worked on….
Kanye West on Trump Let’s stop worrying about the future; all we have is today. …. Trump is on his hero’s journey right now. He might not have thought he’d have a crazy mother-f–ker like (me).”
Kanye West on a 68-year-old prisoner whose case he was raising with Trump Really, the reason why they imprisoned him is because he started doing positive for the community he started showing that he actually had power, he wasn’t just one of a monolithic voice, that he could wrap people around. So, there’s theories that there’s infinite amounts of universe, and there’s alternate universe.
Kanye West on his own speech You are tasting a fine wine. It has complex notes to it.
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