Comedian turned CNN Host, W. Kamau Bell claims "Snoop Shooting Trump Not As Bad As 'You Lie' Against Obama

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Tonight, comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell declared that he was "more offended" by Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouting, "You lie!" at President Barack Obama than he was at the depiction of President Donald Trump being shot at, during a discussion of Snoop Dogg's controversial rap video. Host Don Lemon oddly proclaimed that he was not bothered by the video "except for the gun part where he shoots," even though that scene is the primary reason people are criticizing it. After Lemon first brought up the video at 11:53 p.m. ET, Bell declared that it was "pretty harsh" for people to call it a "mock execution," and dismissed it as "satire." Lemon then made his first of two odd declarations that he only had a problem with the part with Snoop Dogg shooting at Trump. Lemon: "I had no problem with it except for the gun part where he shoots, I mean, because people, because that's, we've had people-"



Bell jumped in and admitted that it was meant to be "provocative" and claimed that he was "not trying to defend it" before he then cheerfully joked about how people will keep watching the video because the song is so good. Bell: "Clearly he was trying to be provocative. I get that, and I'm not trying to defend that. I'm just saying that, like, he clearly meant to be provocative, but I think that, again, the biggest problem that Trump has with that song is it's a good song and people are going to be listening to that song and watch that video a lot. I was like, 'Oh, that's the biggest problem. This song's good.'" After Lemon read a statement from video director Jesse Wellens claiming that he was not trying to "condone violence," Bell again dismissed it as "satire" in which the Trump character ends up smoking weed with Snoop Dogg and that "it's not actually an execution of the President."



After Lemon read a tweet from President Trump calling out the double standard of how such a video would be viewed if President Obama had been the target, Bell then made his claim that Obama had suffered worse: "Obama dealt with things like this all the time. What's more offensive? Donald Trump character in this video or Joe Wilson standing on the floor of the Senate during the State of the Union saying "you lie" to Obama. I feel like that's more offensive to me. So Obama dealt with this stuff all the time." -- Lemon then oddly claimed that it was "hypocritical" for Trump to criticize Snoop Dogg in this case after having ignored the rapper roasting him on Comedy Central in the past -- even though there was presumably no depiction of Trump being shot at in the Comedy Central appearance.



Lemon: "I think there was also a little hypocrisy on the President's part just for -- because I watched the Comedy Central roast of Donald Trump recently, and it was kind of, it was a little weird to watch it. Snoop Dogg is one of the roasters and said much nastier things about then-private citizen Trump than he said about President Trump in that video. Again, the gun thing bothered me, but the other stuff didn't." -- Last week, the same two CNN personalities similarly did not see a double standard in liberals attacking conservative HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson for calling African slaves "immigrants," even though President Barack Obama had a history of similarly counting slaves as "immigrants."