“How about the guy from Chicago? The actor that nobody ever heard of.”
President Donald Trump called Jussie Smollett “the actor nobody ever heard of” while speaking Tuesday night at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner.
Trump, who also took aim at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., during the speech, derided Smollett for allegedly falsely claiming in January to have been attacked by two men wearing “Make America Great Again” hats.
“How about the guy from Chicago? The actor that nobody ever heard of,” Trump said of Smollett. “He said he got taken out by ‘MAGA country.’ I said, ‘What the hell was that?’ I guess that’s a hate crime, right?”
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Trump’s remarks come just days after the former “Empire” star was mocked by comedian Tracy Morgan during an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
“Yeah, they gave me a role on ‘Empire,'” Morgan told host Jimmy Fallon. “Contractually, they gave me millions of dollars. Contractually, all I gotta do is not fake a hate crime.”
Morgan also joked about reports that Smollett miraculously held onto his Subway sandwich throughout the entire attack.
“He didn’t let that Subway sandwich go!” Morgan said.
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The roasting of Smollett began over the weekend. Morgan’s fellow comedian, Chris Rock, slammed the “Empire” star while presenting at the NAACP Image Awards on Sunday.
“They said no Jussie Smollett jokes,” Rock said. “I know. What a waste of light skin, you know? You know what I could do with that light skin? That curly hair? My career would be outta here – fucking running Hollywood.”
“What the hell was he thinking? From now on I ain’t never gonna (say) no Jussie — you’re a Jessie from now on. You don’t get the ‘u’ no more. That ‘u’ was respect. You don’t get no respect from me,” he added.
Public attention on Smollett flared up last week after Cook County State’s prosecutors announced Monday during an emergency court hearing they would be dropping 16 charges of disorderly conduct for making a false statement against the actor. Media outlets reported that the Chicago Police Department was “furious” about the decision.
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