Matt Lauer responded to Kanye West’s Twitter rant after his interview on The Today Show yesterday where he discussed the incident in which he said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
Kanye accused Lauer of trying to force answers out of him during the tense interview.
Kanye gets kudos for not backing down from his stance on what he (and many others) perceived as the government’s racist response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. “I think a lot of things that happen in America, period, are because of race.” said Kanye.
Kanye objected to Lauer playing a tape of Bush condemning Kanye’s remarks to get a response from him: “I didn’t need you guys to show me the tape… to prompt my emotions.”
He struggled with Lauer’s leading attempts to get him to say he was sorry for calling Bush a racist. “I did not have enough information in that situation to call him a racist.”
Later, Kanye lashed out angrily when Lauer played the MTV VMA clip of him snatching Taylor Swift’s mic.
“Yo, how am I supposed to talk if you’re gonna run this thing in the middle while I’m talking,” he said as the MTV clip played. Lauer explained to Kanye that the audio was “under” him, meaning low.
“But I’m hearing it while I’m trying to talk. Please don’t let that happen again!,” Kanye snapped to the producers off camera.
Afterward, Lauer explained that running video while a guest is talking is “something we do every day.” He even plugged Kanye’s upcoming live performance on The Today Show on Friday, November 26.
