T.I. has issued a stern warning to his celebrity peers meeting with Trump: "Do not accept any invitation to have any meeting... No matter how positive you think the outcome may be."
On Monday, T.I. shared his two cents on the matter in a series of Instagram video posts explaining his theory on the Trump administration's "strategic plan" to help normalize the president-elect.
"They see how adamantly against [Trump] being president the hip-hop community and the young black people was in America," he said. "So what did they do? They get Kanye West to come in. Well, surely, 'if you take a picture with him, he smiles and says he's cool with it, they'll fall right in line. Also, you got black women they were against it, 'well, who speaks to the black women? Steve Harvey. Let's get him in here, he'll take a picture he'll smile. He'll say it's cool. They'll fall right in line.' "
T.I. ― whose sentiments echoed those of DL. Hughley on the topic ― cited visits from Jim Brown, Ray Lewis and Monday's visit by Martin Luther King Jr.'s son, Martin Luther King III as other examples of the Trump administration using black entertainers as a ploy to gain black supporters.
Yet the rapper-actor, who recently wrote a candid open letter to Trump, added that there's nothing wrong with sitting "across from anybody no matter how different your views may be from theirs or how different your background may be... as long as they give you the basic human decency of respecting your values, respecting your ancestors' legacies. And they're not representing hate groups that are adamantly against your advancements and progressions as a people."
And there you have it.