As Ice Cube has continued to get criticism for being in contact with the Trump 2020 campaign, the rapper/actor/activist wanted to clarify his thoughts on Hot 97. Speaking with Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg, and Laura Stylez, Cube said he didn't actually work with the Trump campaign, as many assumed, but rather opened a dialogue with them to possibly make changes.
Ice Cube put out a call for people to help out with his Contract with Black America back in July, while Trump unveiled his Platinum Plan earlier this month. The $500 billion package is intended to help Black communities, whereas Cube's contract is a list of proposals from him and his team that they'd like to see implemented. He knows people on the Democratic side, he explained, and despite initial interest, he said they never properly replied to him. After he released the contract and went public with it, the Trump campaign reached out to him.
"People can always add to it, it's not my contract, I believe it's our contract," he said at the 8-minute mark of the interview above. Once again, he explained that he had Democrats' promise to follow-up and speak with him, but he didn't heard back. After the Trump campaign reached out, they changed their plan somewhat based on his contract. He told them, "no one's gonna believe you unless you do something," and shortly after came the tweet from Trump 2020 senior adviser Katrina Pierson that sparked the backlash.
"You know, to me it's politics," Cube said of how he feels about her tweet. "Of course it's a little shady, because it was misleading, but it's politics." He went on to indicate that if he met with the Democratic campaign, he believes they would have misled the public in a similar fashion. "I knew it was going to come out eventually, but I think I was there for a bigger cause so I wasn't really concerned about that. I knew once the truth got out, and people heard what I said, they would understand what happened."
As for why he's not wanting to speak only with Democrats as opposed to Republicans, he explained, "Both sides are lacking, and they gotta do better." He confirmed he's a registered voter, and revealed he has voted Democrat "in every election." He's still undecided this year, though, but he says he will vote regardless.
"I'm a real true undecided voter because they're not doing enough," he said.
Asked if Trump's flirtation and outright embrace of white supremacy would put him off potentially supporting Trump, he answered, "I'm not supporting Donald Trump."
At the 13:50 point in the video, he expanded upon his thoughts and suggested racism is very much a both-sides issue. "White supremacy do turn me off, but it's everywhere, and it's on both sides of the aisle," he continued. "That's just the reality that we live in, and I'm not naive to that. We're engulfed in white supremacy, so that's just something we're gonna have to fight our way out of."
When it was suggested that it's a cop-out to "both-sides" the two candidates, he replied, "It's not a cop out, it's the reality of the situation we find ourselves in." He proceeded to suggest that regardless of who wins this November, Black Americans specifically won't be better off unless something is done to work with who's in charge.
Cube previously spoke about the same subject in a recent interview with Rolling Stone while talking about Democrats and Republicans, asking, "You don’t think the Democrats is about white supremacy?" He continued, "I think it’s good cop, bad cop, man. You know their game. They both cops. They both will lock your ass up quick. They both got the power to lock you up. One mean, one nice. OK? But it’s still the same thing. This is what we dealing with, but they still got the same goal and that’s why we’re in the position that we’re in. It’s not them that got to do something different; it’s us that got to do something different."
Repeatedly throughout the newer interview, Cube wanted to make it clear he is in no way a fan of Trump or a supporter. Talking about why he's trying to open a line of communication with Trump's campaign, he said the current president should carry out the promise of the Platinum Plan because what he's doing right now isn't working. "Your country is coming apart," he said in a comment directed at Trump. "It's coming apart at the seams, it don't work. It's not fixed. It's not great again. You wanna fix that? You gotta fix the Black issue."
He also briefly addressed the general backlash, pointing out that most people were mad because they believed he outright helped create Trump's proposal for Black America. "If you really think that I was tricked, duped, or whatever...people spent their entire weekend breaking down Trump's plan to people, trying to talk shit about me," he said at the 33:30 point, stressing that his Contract with Black America and Trump's Platinum Plan are not the same thing. "And so, people gotta look at what they did to pump up the man's plan. I never in my life said anything about his plan until I had to come out and defend the truth."
Watch the full interview above.
