It seems like rapper Nicki Minaj is on everyone’s timeline as 2025 comes to a close — and it’s not because of holiday pictures, her next tour, or a new song release.
It’s her increased support of President Donald Trump, his administration and conservative groups that has Black social media in an uproar and wondering what happened to Minaj, anyway? This past weekend she sat on stage at Turning Point USA’s annual conference, AmericaFest, for an interview with Erika Kirk, the widow of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, praising Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Ironically, Kirk’s late husband said in 2024 that he did not believe Minaj was a positive influence on “18-year-old Black girls.”
The Trinidad and Tobago-born and Queens, New York-raised rapper’s sitdown interview with Erika Kirk may not be a total surprise to some. There have been some signs throughout the years, and the question remains: Has Minaj shifted politically?
In 2012, she jokingly endorsed Republicans on Lil’ Wayne’s song “Mercy.” I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney. You lazy b***hes is f***ing up the econ’my.”
As Trump ramped up in his presidential campaign in 2015, she told Billboard, “There are points he has made that may not have been so horrible if his approach wasn’t so childish.”
Yet, she took a harsher stance in 2016, seemingly criticizing Trump in her song, “Black Barbies.” “Island girl, Donald Trump want me go home.”
And in 2018, Minaj called out the separation of families at the border during Trump’s first administration.
In 2021, during COVID, she was criticized for spreading misinformation about the vaccine.
This year, Minaj spoke at the United Nations alongside U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz to make the case that Christians in Nigeria are being killed “in very large numbers” (as per Trump) by Islamist extremists.
After her appearance at AmericaFest in Phoenix, commenters are questioning the Southside Jamaica, Queens-raised hip-hop artist’s motives even more.
Minaj’s apparent outreach to the Trump administration and groups like Turning Point have fueled online speculation. Some have suggested — without evidence — that the move is connected to her husband, Kenneth Petty’s legal history. He was convicted in federal court in 2022 of failing to register as a sex offender after relocating to California with Minaj following their 2019 marriage.
Trump has granted pardons and commutations to at least 1,500 Jan. 6 insurrectionists. There are more than 19,000 pending clemency applications with the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney dating back as far as 2009, according to the agency’s case search data file as of Dec. 15.
Only 17 people were granted clemency through the Department of Justice’s Pardon Attorney application process, according to a report prepared by the office of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley titled, “Trump’s Clemency Gap: How Trump’s Pardons Are Ignoring The People Who Need Them The Most.”
Minaj’s political messaging during her interview with Kirk’s widow may not be a total surprise to some. Even though she said she refused to join the Trump bandwagon in 2020, fast-forward to this year when she shared an anti-trans post from the White House’s social media, and has an online feud with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, over his support of transgender youth.
The conversation at AmericaFest also veered into awkward territory when she referred to Vance as an “assassin.” Kirk’s death in September has been labeled by his conservative supporters as an assassination — when acts of violence against an individual are politically motivated.
“Dear young men, you have amazing role models like our handsome, dashing president, and you have amazing role models like the assassin JD Vance, our vice president,” Minaj said before briefly covering her mouth with her hand.
Erika Kirk forgave the 43-year-old, saying to “laugh about it.”
“I have been called every single thing, and you know what? God is so good, you let it roll right off your back,” she told Minaj in response to the crowd’s reaction.
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