POTUS has taken to his primary form of communication to react to Snoop Dogg's new music video for "Lavender," which features a clown dress up like Donald Trump. In the politically charged video, released on Sunday, Snoop aims what turns out to be a gag gun at the clown-face president. On Wednesday morning, Trump opened up his handy book of go-to insults to respond to the rapper in 140 characters or less. "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!" the president tweeted — putting Snoop in the same company as the "failing" New York Times and Hillary "lock her up" Clinton.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Earlier this week, Snoop told Billboard that the project, a remix of a BADBADNOTGOOD collaboration featuring Kaytranada, is meant to depict all the "clown shit going on" right now, including in the White House. "The whole world is clownin’ around, and [video director Jesse Wellens’] concept is so right on point with the art direction and the reality, because if you really look at some of these motherfuckers, they are clowns." He continued, "I feel like it’s a lot of people making cool records, having fun, partying, but nobody’s dealing with the real issue with this fucking clown as president, and the shit that we dealing with out here."
The 45-year-old specifically takes issues with Trump's immigration policy (a.k.a. "[the] ban that this motherfucker tried to put up"), as well as the ongoing racist drug wars and police brutality, which he specifically addresses in the lyrics. "Police being able to kill motherfuckers and get away with it; people being in jail for weed for 20, 30 years and motherfuckers that’s not black on the streets making money off of it — but if you got color or ethnicity connected to your name, you’ve been wrongfully accused or locked up for it."
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2017
On Tuesday, Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen told TMZ the rapper should needs to "respect the office of the presidency and apologize to the president. "It's totally disgraceful. Snoop owes the president an apology," he said. "There's absolutely nothing funny about an assassination attempt on a president, and I'm really shocked at him because I thought he was better than that." Cohen continued, "I'm not really sure I understand the artistic value to having somebody dress up as Trump and firing a weapon at him... 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." He added, "Just because you want to hide behind the guise of artistic capabilities or artistic freedom of speech doesn't make it right, and Snoop knows that."
Surely, many will agree that "failing" Snoop is "hiding behind the guise" of art and the First Amendment. What many of us see, though, is a rap artist making a political point with critical lyrics and purposefully inflammatory visuals satirizing the White House — and a president who can't be offended without lashing out.