Black celebs, sports figures meet with Trump in NY

Associated Press

NEW YORK

President-elect Donald Trump met Tuesday with several black celebrities, including rap mogul and possible future presidential candidate Kanye West, to talk about some of the issues facing inner city African-Americans.

“I feel it is important to have a direct line of communication with our future president if we truly want change,” West later said in a tweet.

Trump met with West, former NFL linebacker Ray Lewis and NFL icon and civil-rights leader Jim Brown, along with longtime Trump backer and Youngstown native Omarosa Manigault, at Trump Tower in New York City on Tuesday.

West refused to comment with reporters after the meeting, instead saying only “I just want to take a picture right now” as he posed for pictures with Trump.

A few minutes later, West tweeted from his #kanyewest account that he met with Trump “to discuss multicultural issues” including bullying, education and “violence in Chicago.”

This all comes as civil-rights leaders have been asking for a meeting with Trump to discuss his upcoming administration’s positions on issues such as housing and urban renewal. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other civil-rights leaders last week wrote Trump to ask for a meeting to discuss urban policies, and to have a White House conference on violence.

It was not immediately known whether Trump would be meeting with civil-rights leaders.

Brown and Lewis said they talked with Trump about the new administration partnering with Brown’s “Amer-I-Can” outreach program, which aims to teach life skills to young people from poor backgrounds.

Also Tuesday, Trump asked Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel to serve as national party chairwoman, in part as a reward for delivering Michigan for the GOP for the first time in 28 years.

The choice of McDaniel to serve as Republican National Committee chairwoman was confirmed Tuesday night by a person familiar with Trump’s decision. The person asked for anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made.

McDaniel is the niece of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump met with Bill Gates.

The co-founder of Microsoft Corp. told reporters that he and the president-elect had a “good conversation about innovation, how it can help in health, education, the impact of foreign aid and energy,” as well as “a wide-ranging conversation about power of innovation.”