WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West were sitting down for lunch at the White House on Thursday to discuss prison reform as Trump seeks to use his celebrity roots to political advantage.
The two were to sit down for a roasted chicken lunch in the private dining room off the Oval Office, along with Hall of Fame NFL running back Jim Brown, as well as Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Trump and his guests would discuss potential future clemencies for convicts along with “addressing the massive violent crime surge in Chicago” and efforts to create jobs for African-Americans.
Kanye’s visit follows by several months a similar trip to the White House by his celebrity wife, Kim Kardashian West, who met with Trump on May 30 and persuaded him to grant clemency to Alice Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug charge in Tennessee.
Kanye has drawn fire from other celebrities for his support of Trump, the former reality TV star currently looking ahead to congressional elections on Nov. 6 and his own re-election campaign in 2020.
The Republican president has advocated prison reform and said he was open to changes in sentencing guidelines, an issue that divides the Republican Party between “law and order” hard-liners and moderates.
“There are people in jail for really long terms,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “We do need reform. And that doesn’t mean easy. We’re going to make certain categories tougher, when it comes to drug dealing and other things.
“It’s very unfair to African-Americans it’s very unfair to everybody. And it’s also very costly.”
He said he would overrule his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who has balked at efforts to reduce sentences served by convicts and is unlikely to support new ones.
“Well if he doesn’t then he gets overruled by me, because I make the decisions, he doesn’t,” Trump said.
Trump claims Kanye West as a friend and a “different kind of a guy” whose big following in the African-American community helped boost his approval ratings. Asked if he would consider campaigning with the rapper, Trump said, “I could see it. I could see it.”
Trump lunches with Kanye West, will talk justice reform
Trump lunches with Kanye West, will talk justice reform
- The two were to sit down for a roasted chicken lunch in the private dining room off the Oval Office
- Kanye’s visit follows by several months a similar trip to the White House by his celebrity wife, Kim Kardashian West
Moscow made an offer to France regarding a French citizen imprisoned in Russia, says Kremlin
- Laurent Vinatier, an adviser for Swiss-based adviser Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024
- He is accused of failing to register as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia’s “military and military-technical activities”
The Kremlin on Thursday said it was in contact with the French authorities over the fate of a French political scholar serving a three-year sentence in Russia and reportedly facing new charges of espionage.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia has made “an offer to the French” regarding Laurent Vinatier, arrested in Moscow last year and convicted of collecting military information, and that “the ball is now in France’s court.” He refused to provide details, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
French President Emmanuel Macron is following Vinatier’s situation closely, his office said in a statement. French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said Thursday that all government services are fully mobilized to pay provide consular support to Vinatier and push for his liberation as soon as possible.
Peskov’s remarks come after journalist Jérôme Garro of the French TF1 TV channel asked President Vladimir Putin during his annual news conference on Dec. 19 whether Vinatier’s family could hope for a presidential pardon or his release in a prisoner exchange. Putin said he knew “nothing” about the case, but promised to look into it.
Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024. Russian authorities accused him of failing to register as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia’s “military and military-technical activities” that could be used to the detriment of national security. The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The arrest came as tensions flared between Moscow and Paris following French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about the possibility of deploying French troops in Ukraine.
Vinatier’s lawyers asked the court to sentence him to a fine, but the judge in October 2024 handed him a three-year prison term — a sentence described as “extremely severe” by France’s Foreign Ministry, which called for the scholar’s immediate release.
Detentions on charges of spying and collecting sensitive data have become increasingly frequent in Russia and its heavily politicized legal system since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In addition to criticizing his sentence, the French Foreign Ministry urged the abolition of Russia’s laws on foreign agents, which subject those carrying the label to additional government scrutiny and numerous restrictions. Violations can result in criminal prosecution. The ministry said the legislation “contributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, like the freedom of association, the freedom of opinion and the freedom of expression.”
Vinatier is an adviser for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization, which said in June 2024 that it was doing “everything possible to assist” him.
While asking the judge for clemency ahead of the verdict, Vinatier pointed to his two children and his elderly parents he has to take care of.
The charges against Vinatier relate to a law that requires anyone collecting information on military issues to register with authorities as a foreign agent.
Human rights activists have criticized the law and other recent legislation as part of a Kremlin crackdown on independent media and political activists intended to stifle criticism of the war in Ukraine.
In August 2025, Russian state news agency Tass reported that Vinatier was also charged with espionage, citing court records but giving no details. Those convicted of espionage in Russia face between 10 and 20 years in prison.
Russia in recent years has arrested a number of foreigners — mainly US citizens — on various criminal charges and then released them in prisoner swaps with the United States and other Western nations. The largest exchange since the Cold War took place in August 2024, when Moscow freed journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, fellow American Paul Whelan, and Russian dissidents in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
