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Snoop Dogg has become a talking point on social media after video footage was shared of him apparently advising his fans not to vote for former President Donald Trump.
In the expletive-laden clip, the rapper, whose given name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., is seen calling any potential voters for Trump "stupid" as he launches a scathing attack on the 2024 presidential hopeful.
Polling indicates that Trump has built a commanding lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his nearest rival, with GOP voters in his bid to represent the party again in the 2024 election. A recent survey, conducted by The Wall Street Journal, found that 59 percent of Republicans said the former president would be their preferred candidate, versus just 13 percent for DeSantis.
Trump also faces his fair share of detractors, with Snoop Dogg counting himself among them. Back in November 2018, the musician shared video footage of himself lighting up a cannabis joint near the White House as he repeatedly aimed expletives at the then president.
In September of that year, he told DJ Suss that anyone who liked Trump was "racist." The rapper said Trump "drew the lines" of division in his role at the White House by "singling them out."
Back in March of 2017, Snoop Dogg Snoop released a music video showing a mock assassination of a Trump-inspired clown called Ronald Klump.
Condemning the video at the time, Trump wrote on X, then known as Twitter: "Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President [Barack] Obama? Jail time!"
The Claim
Snoop Dogg's distaste for Trump has been highlighted once again, after X subscriber @IanJaeger29 shared a video on September 22 that showed the star sharing some choice words regarding the real estate mogul in an expletive-riddled rant.
"I just want to say this real quickly," Snoop said in the self-shot footage. "Ain't no f****** way y'all can vote for Donald Trump when he come back up again.
"And this punk[...]don't care. Don't vote for that n****, please don't. Look what he do. He just don't give a f***."
"Y'all are honest, blue collar, hardworking people, and suffering," he went on. "So if he don't care about y'all, he really don't give a f*** about us."
"Snoop Dogg says you shouldn't vote for Trump again. Thoughts?" @IanJaeger29 captioned the clip.
The video, which has been viewed more than 2.5 million times, sparked an outcry on X, with a number of the social media platform's users calling for Snoop Dogg to receive "the Bud Light treatment."
The "Bud Light treatment" comments were in reference to a boycott of the beer brand among a faction of detractors who objected to Bud Light's brief marketing partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The Facts
The version of Snoop Dogg's video that is currently being circulated on X actually dates back to January 2019. It is also an edited version of what he said at the time.
In the full-length version of the video, which was shared on the Daily Mail's website on January 7, 2019, the star was seen addressing "all you federal government people that's not being paid, that's being treated f****** unfairly right now."
Snoop Dogg was speaking in reference to the 2018/2019 government shutdown, which stretched for 35 days over Trump's demands for funding for a wall along the southern border to prevent illegal crossings from Mexico.
The shutdown, which began days before Christmas in 2018, halted most of the government's discretionary operations and left around 800,000 federal employees without continuous pay.
As hundreds of thousands of workers were furloughed, many critical government operations ground to a halt: the Food and Drug Administration discontinued food safety inspections and immigration court hearings were routinely canceled, for example.
At the time that Snoop Dogg unveiled his video, Trump was in the process of ramping up his efforts to run for a second term in the White House in 2020. He would eventually go on to lose to Democrat challenger President Joe Biden. The two are currently expected to face off once again at the polls in November 2024.
Newsweek has contacted representatives of Snoop Dogg and Trump via email for comment.
The Ruling
Needs Context. While Snoop Dogg did, indeed, share a video in which he discouraged votes for Trump, the video is almost 5 years old and was aimed specifically at those working in U.S. government departments.
The clip that has recently been shared on social media has been edited and does not feature any of Snoop Dogg's specific references to the government shutdown.
Aside from the edited version showing the musician's address to "honest, blue collar, hardworking people," there is also no direct reference to the government workers who had been affected by the shutdown at the time.
Although Snoop Dogg has been outspoken regarding his views on Trump in the past, it is currently unclear whether the video reflects his current opinion.
FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK
About the writer
Ryan Smith is a Newsweek Senior Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more