Trump's obsessive beef with Snoop Dogg distracted from White House duties during last days in office

Trump staffers had to scramble to try to prove the rapper wasn't a critic of the then-president

By Nardos Haile

Staff Writer

Published February 20, 2024 5:24PM (EST)

Donald Trump and rapper Snoop Dogg perform onstage at the Comedy Central Roast Of Donald Trump at the Hammerstein Ballroom on March 9, 2011 in New York City. (Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)
Donald Trump and rapper Snoop Dogg perform onstage at the Comedy Central Roast Of Donald Trump at the Hammerstein Ballroom on March 9, 2011 in New York City. (Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

Snoop Dogg and Donald Trump's beef goes deep. While the rapper recently made headlines for saying he has nothing but "love and respect" for the former president — that hasn't always been the case for both parties.

In the past, Snoop once said about Trump, "If you like that n***a, you motherf**king racist.”

However, the rapper's tone changed in 2020 and early 2021 when he worked behind the scenes seeking a pardon for his friend and Death Row Records co-founder Michael "Harry-O" Harris. Harris received a life sentence for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and cocaine trafficking in the '90s.

According to a Rolling Stone report, the former president spent the final days of his term, weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection, enraged by some of Snoop's comments. He told staffers that “Well, f**k him,” even though his administration had been working with criminal justice activists and Snoop to grant clemency to imprisoned people. 

Trump's anger at Snoop's comments resulted in the then-president telling his aides to reject Harris' clemency as a way to punish Snoop. This set off a last-minute, frenzied attempt by White House staffers to convince Trump that Snoop was no longer anti-Trump. 

The former president was shown the footage of Snoop complimenting him from a documentary chronicling Harris' attempt to gain clemency. A day before Trump was about to turn over his presidency to Biden, Harris was re-added to the list of pardons.

Snoop thanked the president after Harris' release in 2021, saying, “That’s great work for the president and his team on the way out."

 

 

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