Rapper-actor Ice-T says Snoop Dogg pointing a gun at a parody clown version of President Donald Trump in his latest music video is “against the law” and pushes the line between what is artistic and what is not.
“It’s basically him saying everybody’s a clown, including Trump,” Ice-T told TMZ about the visuals for Snoop Dogg’s song “Lavender,” which sees the California rapper shoot a clown-faced President “Ronald Klump” with a fake gun.
“The part where you point the gun at the president is against the law — you know you gotta know that,” ICE-T said. “You can’t kill the president. But I think he pushed the line.”
New Jersey-based rapper-actor Treach chimes in, adding that “it was a confetti gun” that Snoop points at the clown Trump. “It was artistic. He didn’t come and have blood splattered all over the place.”
TMZ also asked Ice-T what his response would be if an artist pointed a gun at President Obama.
“I think it would be terrible,” Ice-T said. “But Obama wasn’t the same kind of guy as Trump. It was very hard to make an Obama joke, one because of his race, because Obama was such a smooth character. I think Trump brings a lot of these jokes on to himself. He’s such a character. And he acts like a clown.”
“I think Snoop is just saying right now everybody seems like a clown,” Ice-T added. “It’s Trump season right now. They’re going to make every kind of joke they can about the dude because they give him so much material.”
Scenes from Snoop Dogg’s “Lavender” video show the clown-face Trump tied up in chains and sees actor Michael Rapaport dressed as a clown being pulled over and shot by a clown-faced police officer.
“The gun said ‘bang.’ I was nervous, though,” Ice-T said. “I watched the video for the first time and said ‘No you can’t point a gun at the president.’
“He’s messing with the line. But I roll with Snoop.”
Not everybody was a fan of Snoop’s artistry.
Senator Marco Rubio slammed Snoop Dogg, warning him against using such imagery.
“Snoop shouldn’t have done that … You know, we’ve had presidents assassinated before in this country, so anything like that is really something that you should be very careful about,” Rubio told TMZ Monday.
“I think people can disagree … [but] you’ve got to be very careful about that kind of thing, because the wrong person sees that and gets the wrong idea, you can have a real problem,” the Republican senator added. “So I’m not sure what Snoop was thinking, he should think about that a little bit.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson
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