Donald Trump Lashes Out at Snoop Dogg Over Controversial Music Video
Undaunted by more pressing issues like health care and a possible FBI investigation into Russian ties, the President of the United States continued to pick fights with celebrities on Twitter Wednesday morning as Donald Trump lashed out at Snoop Dogg over the rapper’s controversial “Lavender” video.
The video, released on Monday as a remix of BadBadNotGood and Kaytranada’s original track, featured Snoop Dogg shooting a gun loaded with confetti at a clown-faced caricature of Trump. The video immediately drew criticism from Florida senator Marco Rubio and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen before the president himself weighed in on “Lavender.”
“Snoop shouldn’t have done that,” Rubio said Tuesday. “We’ve had presidents assassinated before in this country, so anything like that is something people should really careful about.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter. “Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!”
Trump’s tweet echoed Cohen’s comments to TMZ Live Tuesday. “I certainly would not have accepted it if it was President Obama. I certainly don’t accept it as President Trump, and in all fairness, it’s not funny, it’s not artistic,” Cohen said.
In another probing TMZ interview conducted while Ted Cruz waited for an elevator, the Texas senator said of Snoop Dogg’s video, “I think it really is in poor taste to be making fun of murdering someone, and particularly assassinating the president.”
“We have a really sad history in this country of attempted and successful assassinations and it’s irresponsible for a musician or artist to encourage murdering the president,” Cruz added. “I think anyone reasonable or responsible should be disagreeing with the video. We should not be advocating the murder of the President of the United States, and it’s sad that that is deemed a controversial statement.”
Trump also previously used his Twitter handle to mock Arnold Schwarzenegger over the failure of the Celebrity Apprentice. As many have noted, while the president continues to use Twitter as a mouthpiece to feud with celebrities, he hasn’t once tweeted to vilify the surge of Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and racist incidents occurring nationwide since his election.
A rep for Snoop Dogg did not immediately reply to a request for comment.