Hip-hop superstar Nicki Minaj doubled down on her controversial support for President Donald J. Trump with a short speech at a “Trump Accounts Summit” session on Wednesday, telling the assembled audience that Trump is being “bullied” and “smeared” and declaring herself “probably the president’s No. 1 fan.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say,” Minaj began, after clasping hands with the president at the Washington, D.C. event, “but I will say that I am probably the president’s no. 1 fan. And that’s not going to change.
“And the hate with what people have to say, it does not affect me, at all,” she continued. “It actually motivates me to support him more. And it’s gonna motivate all of us to support him more. We’re not going to let them get away with bullying him. The smear campaigns, it’s not going to work. He has a lot of force behind him, and God is protecting him. Amen?”
With that, she whispered a question to someone off-stage of whether she should go, and made her exit.
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Trump said to her, “We did pretty well with your community,” apparently speaking of his Black supporters.
He also joked about her wealth, saying about how $16 billion in contributions to “Trump Accounts” was a figure that would make even as rich a rapper as Minaj sit up and take notice.
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Minaj has announced that she will contribute between $150,000 and $300,000 to fund her fans’ Trump Accounts, although how those contributions would be diverted specifically to fans has not been explained.
Trump Accounts is the name given to Section 530A individual retirement accounts, as part of recently passed tax and spending legislation in which the federal government has pledged to deposit $1,000 into investment accounts for all chidlren born between 2025 and 2028, if parents sign their children up in the course of filing their income taxes.
Said Trump in his remarks, “Decades from now I believe Trump Accounts will be remembered as one of the most transformative policy innovations of all time.”
Minaj had advertised her appearance at Wednesday’s event in advance, tweeting four days ago that Trump Accounts represented “the true meaning of paying it forward. Early financial literacy & financial support for our children will give them a major head start in life.”
Minaj has made no secret recently of her love for the president, to the dismay of many of her “Barbz,” who have been sharply divided over the rapper’s pronounced turn toward the right.
From Variety US