Nicki Minaj on questioning COVID vaccine: Other artists 'afraid to speak up'
Fox Nation host Lara Logan joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to comment on the rapper's 'unifying' action via Twitter.
Rapper Nicki Minaj hit back at the White House on Wednesday after the Biden administration put out a statement clarifying it had offered her a phone call to discuss her coronavirus vaccine hesitancy, not an in-person visit.
"Do y’all think I would go on the internet and lie about being invited to the f---ing White House? Like what? Do you guys see what is happening right now?" Minaj said in a 14-minute video post on Instagram.
She claimed her manager and publicist were on a call with the White House in which administration officials said, "We’d like to offer Nicki an invitation to come to the White House to speak with" Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
"Do y’all think I would go on the internet and lie about being invited to the f---ing White House?"
She said she told White House officials she would rather not travel and suggested some kind of either public or private "live" video on social media.
The White House was open to doing a "live" session, she said, but never took a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. off the table.
Earlier Wednesday, a White House official suggested the administration offered only a phone call with the rapper to speak with experts on vaccine safety.
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Nicki Minaj is seen during Fashion Week in New York City, Sept. 11, 2018. (Associated Press)
"As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine," the official told Fox News.
Minaj had tweeted, "The White House has invited me & I think it’s a step in the right direction. Yes, I’m going. I’ll be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business. I’ll ask questions on behalf of the ppl who have been made fun of for simply being human."
She later said in her Instagram video that the White House called back after she put out the tweet about the invitation and "weren’t too happy" about her talking about it publicly.
Minaj also tweeted on Monday that she had skipped the Met Gala, which had a vaccine requirement, saying she wanted to do more research before getting it. She cited her new baby as well for not wanting to travel and encouraged people to wear masks.
The fuss began earlier this week when Minaj made an unsubstantiated claim in a viral tweet on Monday that a friend of her cousin’s in Trinidad became impotent after getting the vaccine.
On Tuesday, Fauci unequivocally dismissed the claim.
"There’s no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen," Fauci told CNN. "There's a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media, and the only way we know to counter mis- and disinformation is to provide a lot of correct information and to essentially debunk these kinds of claims, which may be innocent on her part. I'm not blaming her for anything but she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis."
In a Wednesday news conference, Terrence Deyalsingh, Trinidad's health minister, said its government had "wasted so much time" with Minaj’s claim about impotence.
"There is absolutely no reported such side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad," he said, according to USA Today.
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Minaj also claimed in the video that the Democratic Party and other liberals (not the caller from the White House, she specified) were trying to "assassinate" her character.
Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.
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