Kanye West defends his support for Trump: 'Liberals can't bully me'

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Trump thanks Kanye West for surging poll numbers

President Trump thanks rapper Kanye West for increasing his support with African-Americans.

During an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night, Kanye West defended his decision to support Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, and said he would not be “bullied” by those on the left.

“Just as a musician, African-American, guy out in Hollywood, all these different things, you know, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me,” the Chicago rapper told Kimmel. "And then told me every time I said I liked Trump that I couldn’t say it out loud or my career would be over; I’d get kicked out of the black community because blacks -- we’re supposed to have a monolithic thought, we can only, like, we can only be Democrats and all.”

West said it took more than a year before he gained the “confidence to stand up” and publicly wear Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hat – which caused an uproar from many of his fans back in April.

“I didn’t have the confidence to take on the world and the possible backlash and it took me a year and a half to have the confidence to stand up and put on the hat no matter what the consequences were,” West explained.

“And what it represented to me is not about policies -- because I’m not a politician like that. But it represented overcoming fear and doing what you felt, no matter what anyone said, in saying, you can’t bully me. Liberals can’t bully me, news can’t bully me, the hip-hop community, they can’t bully me.

"Because at that point, if I’m afraid to be me, I’m no longer Ye. That’s what makes Ye.”