‘I Was Entertained’: Listeners Call Into Popular Hip-Hop Show To Give Trump ‘Respect’ For Black Journalist Event

“I wanted to talk about that Donald Trump thing last night. Man, I ain’t even going to hold you, I was entertained, man,” a caller from Brooklyn named Keith said. “I just like how he just could come up in there like, ‘Yo, I want all the smoke.'”

Co-hosts Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Envy laughed, with the former saying, “I keep telling y’all … that’s where he wins at.”

“I hate to give credit, but you got to give credit where it’s due. There’s a certain amount of respect that you got to give to Donald Trump, to know that he was going to walk into the lion’s den … an environment that was less ingratiating to him than his normal environments … and he did it,” an unnamed caller said. “A lot of people would have shied away from that. Now, that speaks to the narcissist in him, but there’s a certain amount of respect that you got to give him for showing up at all.”

The NABJ event was a Q&A session hosted by Scott, Fox News’ Harris Faulkner and Semafor’s Kadia Goba. The session started late and Trump said it was because of equipment issues, not because he was tardy.

“I can see that. I also think that he knew that that was going to be an opportunity to take away headlines from the vice president,” Charlamagne said. “There was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life. He owned the week. Soon as Joe Biden stepped down and they put Kamala up, Kamala has dominated the news cycle. This is really the first time in about maybe a week and a half since the assassination attempt where Donald Trump is top of the ticket when it comes to the headlines. So he knew that was a way to take away, I’m not going to say energy, because her campaign got a lot of energy, but just to get his name back in the mix.”

NABJ President Ken Lemon confirmed Vice President Kamala Harris was unavailable to attend the event in a Wednesday statement. The organization is in talks with Harris to schedule a Q&A “either in person or virtually, at some point in September,” according to its website.