Kanye West loves and hugs Trump

Rap megastar Kanye West loves Donald Trump and proved it in dramatic fashion Thursday, leaping from his seat at a White House meeting to hug the president. “I love this guy,” Kanye declared in the Oval Office. The rapper had been invited to lunch to discuss prison reform but turned what was would ordinarily have been a staid White House photo-op into what must have been one of the most unusual encounters in the Oval Office’s storied history. Talking at speed on everything from Trump’s protectionist trade polices to black gun crime and “infinite amounts of universe,” Kanye left the normally talkative president almost speechless with his performance.

“That was quite something,” Trump said at the end Kanye’s freewheeling soliloquy. “It was from the soul. I just channelled it,” the musician said, adding -- to gasps from presidential staff -- that Trump “might not have expected to have a crazy person like Kanye West supporting him.” The rapper, who has broken ranks with much of the left-leaning entertainment industry to come out in support of Trump, even said he could be president himself -- but “only after” Trump in 2024.