President Donald Trump really loves Kanye West, and on Friday, he made sure the members of the National Rifle Association knew it.In what could have been an homage to his new favorite rapper, Trump jumped unpredictably from topic to topic as he spoke in Dallas Friday at the NRA’s annual convention. Instead of zeroing in on traditional topics like guns and the Second Amendment, Trump used his nearly-hourlong speech to riff on subjects like his Electoral College win (that was almost two years ago), the “fake news CNN,” and the power of West, who recently drew controversy after announcing his support for Trump and claiming that black people being enslaved for 400 years was a “choice.”“By the way, Kanye West must have some power because, as you probably saw, I doubled my African-American poll numbers,” Trump told the crowd. “I went from 11 to 22 in one week. Thank you, Kanye.”Other highlights from the president's address include:The investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election is still a “witch hunt.” “All we hear about is this phony Russia witch hunt,” Trump told the audience, which booed sympathetically. Trump then brandished what appeared to be a print-out of a Friday Wall Street Journal article describing a judge’s concerns about special counsel Bob Mueller’s ability to bring tax- and bank-fraud charges against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, since they weren’t related to the Trump campaign.Trump dredged up his xenophobic campaign speech calling Mexicans “rapists.” As he slammed unauthorized immigration, Trump started to repeat some of the language he’d first used in 2015, when he announced his run for president and accused Mexicans arriving in the United States of being “rapists.” “These countries send up their worst. Remember my opening speech? I got criticized for it,” he said Friday. “They’re not sending their finest, that I can tell you. We’re getting some real beauties in here.”But he restrained himself when it came to North Korea. “I won’t use the rhetoric now. Now, I’m trying to calm it down a little bit,” Trump said, apparently in reference to that time he called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man.”Yes, Trump still wants to arm teachers. “We strongly believe in allowing highly trained teachers to carry concealed weapons,” Trump told the cheering crowd, adding, “They love their students and they’re not going to let anybody hurt their students, but you have to give them a chance.”Plus, if the victims of the 2015 Paris terror attacks were armed, they’d be alive. Trump acted out the attacks that left at least 130 dead and wounded hundreds more. “They took their time and gunned them down one by one. Boom. Come over here. Boom. Come over here. Boom,” Trump said of the terrorists who perpetrated the attack, curving his hand into a finger-gun. “But if one employee or just one patron had a gun, or if one person in this room had been there with a gun aimed at the opposite direction, the terrorists would have fled or been shot and it would have been a whole different story.”And he's still upset about the football players. “We proudly stand for the national anthem,” he declared. “We proudly stand.”Cover image: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum during the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center on May 4, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
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