Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett slammed Nicki Minaj as a “sellout” after she turned to the Trump administration.
The Texas lawmaker weighed in after Minaj stunned fans with her vocal support for Trump, even being photographed holding hands with the former president last week. Crockett accused the Starships rapper of “selling out,” telling TMZ: “I just don’t do sell-outs, especially at this moment. Things are too serious, and too many people are being harmed.”
The remarks followed Minaj’s recent appearance at the United Nations, where she spoke in support of Trump and his administration, arguing that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria. “In Nigeria, Christians are being targeted, driven from their homes and killed,” she said, while standing alongside US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz. “Churches have been burned, families have been torn apart, and entire communities live in constant fear simply because of how they pray.”
Minaj also targeted independent journalist Don Lemon while he was covering a protest at a Minnesota church. She called on authorities to “lock him up” and used a homophobic slur during the exchange. Lemon is openly gay.
“I WANT THAT THUG IN JAIL!!!!! HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO ANY OTHER RELIGION,” Minaj posted on X, in a now deleted post.
Lemon was arrested on Friday in Los Angeles County and charged with violating the rights of worshippers at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Crockett also told TMZ she was against Minaj’s attack on Lemon. “But going after people like Don Lemon, who I love dearly, is just wrong, like she’s just on the wrong side of history.”
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Minaj, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, previously said in 2018 that she came to the United States as an “illegal immigrant.” Over the years, she has voiced support for immigrants, including in a post on X (formerly Twitter), where she wrote: “I came to this country as an illegal immigrant at five years old. I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place and having my parents stripped away from me at the age of five. This is so scary to me. Please stop this. Can you try to imagine the terror and panic these kids feel right now?”
Minaj’s tweets contradict her position today. On Jan. 28, Minaj was seen with the president at a DC summit where she said she was the president’s number one fan.
“And the hate or what people have to say, it does not affect me at all,” she said. “It actually motivates me to support him more.”
Minaj was moved to speak out in politics after seeing how Trump was being treated in public, she shared in a podcast with Katie Miller, the wife of top White House aide Stephen Miller.
“When I saw how he was being treated over and over and over, I just couldn’t handle it,” Minaj told Miller. “I felt that…a lot of that bullying, and the smear campaigns and all of the lying, I felt that that had been done to me for so many years. And I was watching it in real time happen to someone else, and I didn’t think he deserved it.”
