Rapper Chuck D slammed Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, in an interview with CNN’s Carol Costello Tuesday, calling the presumptive Republican nominee “stupid” for saying that the “Black Lives Matter” movement has in some cases instigated police shootings.
“I’m a musician so I can say things like ‘he’s stupid,'” Chuck D said when asked about Trump’s most recent criticism of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. “And this convention is stupid for having him. How about that? He’s out of his mind.”
He also addressed the allegations that Melania Trump’s Republican convention speech plagiarized portions of future first lady Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech.
“In hip hop … the biggest travesty is to bite somebody’s lyrics and rhymes,” Chuck D said. “His wife just bit Michelle — the first lady’s speech and I think they planned it,” he said.
The Trump campaign has denied that the speech contained plagiarized portions. A request for comment from the Trump campaign was not immediately returned.
Chuck, who rose to fame in the 80’s as part of the legendary rap group Public Enemy, has been addressing institutional racism in his music for decades. He traveled to the site of the Republican National Convention as part of the Prophets of Rage music group, which features Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, DJ Lord and rapper B-Real from Cypress Hill.
Known for their progressive views, the musicians targeted Trump in their original song, “The Party is Over” and called their tour, which kicks off Tuesday, the “Make America Rage Again” tour — a dig at Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
Chuck D has been a vocal supporter of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and told CNN that many black people feel alienated in society and targeted by the police.
When asked about a 2014 video of activists calling for “dead cops,” the rapper said that while there are “bad apples everywhere,” including within the police, the Black Lives Matter movement has risen because “there’s been anger by youth who have grown into adults over the last 30 years” because “for the longest period of time black lives seemingly didn’t matter.”
“You wish a lot of bad apples would shut up but … the coverage on any situation that happens to call for change always is covering the worst and not the best,” Chuck D said. “The best outnumber the few bad apples by far.”