Kim Kardashian told Vice President Kamala Harris she’s ‘just here to help’ as she vowed to learn more ‘every day, every visit, every administration’ as she returned to the White House for the first time since Donald Trump was president. Kardashian, a criminal justice reform advocate, participated in a roundtable in the Roosevelt Room with Harris and four people who were just pardoned by President Joe Biden this week.
The reality star recalled how her first ever ‘clemency meeting’ took place in that room as she thanked Harris for her ‘commitment to second chances’ and expressed her gratitude to Biden, who’s in Syracuse, for his wave of commutations this week. ‘Every time I’ve gone and visited a prison I’ve met some of the smartest individuals, with the brightest ideas and to see the changes that are happening to make their reentry easier, I think is going to be life-changing,’ Kardashian gushed. A rule is being finalized that will allow those convicted of felonies who did their time to be eligible for Small Business Administration loans – something that was previously barred. ‘I used to think, well, the goal is just to get our right?’ Kardashian mused. ‘And then everything is all good and everything is just perfect. I was so naive to think tha’s all that was needed. ‘
In reality when people leave prison, Kardashian said, ‘there’s hurdle and obstacle and hurdle and obstacle every step of the way.’ She encouraged those in the room to keep telling their stories. ‘So that people that are in the position to help can open up their hearts and learn along the way with us what needs to be done because if you haven’t been in the system and you aren’t really aware of those challenges you can still do your part to amplify those ideas,’ she suggested. Harris kicked off the roundtable by thanking Kardashian for her appearance – which only became public Thursday morning. ‘I’ll start by saying that I want to thank Kim for your advocacy and for using your platform in a way that has really lifted up the importance of talking about and being dedicated to second chances,’ Harris said. ‘I’m a big believer in the power of redemption,’ the vice president added.
Kardashian made waves in May 2018 by coming to the White House to discuss with Trump the pardon of Alice Johnson, a woman serving life in prison for a non-violent, drug-related charge. She continued to work alongside Trump on criminal justice reform during his administration. On Thursday, Harris touted that the Biden administration was beating Trump in an important metric for the reality star – as the campaign likely seeks an endorsement. ‘We have issued as an administration, with President Biden’s leadership, more pardons than commutations than any recent administration at this point in their term,’ Harris boasted.
The vice president noted that on marijuana ‘we have pardoned all people for federal convictions for simple marijuana possession, many of you have heard me say I just don’t think people should have to go to jail for smoking weed.’ As Kardashian was leaving the posted a selfie of herself outside the White House. ‘Can’t wait to share all the details from the second chances event today at the White House,’ she wrote, with a kissy-face emoji. Kardashian’s visit also comes two days before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in which a flurry of celebrities generally flock to Washington. She last attended the dinner in 2022, alongside then-boyfriend Pete Davidson.
On Wednesday Biden granted clemency to 16 people who were conviced of non-violent drug crimes as part of ‘Second Chance Month.’ Trump eventually commuted Johnson’s sentence and later gave her a full pardon in August 2020, just months before the presidential election. In turn, Johnson became a surrogate for Trump’s reelection campaign and delivered a speech at that summer’s Republican National Convention, which was staged in Washington due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During this same time period, Trump soured on Kardashian – who has never publicly said who she voted for in the 2020 presidential race. In November, Trump referred to Kardashian as ‘the World’s most overrated celebrity.’
Trump was angered by an anecdote in ABC News’ Jonathan Karl’s book, Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party, that said the then-president had asked Kardashian for help attracting ‘football stars.’ In the waning days of his administration, Kardashian – who was working to get non-violent offenders out of prison – had asked Trump to commute more sentences, as he had done after their highly publicized Oval Office meeting in 2018. A source told Karl that ‘Trump listened to her requests and demanded a straight-up quid pro quo.’ ‘He would grant the commutations, he told Kardashian, if she leveraged her celebrity connections to get football stars who were friends of hers to come visit him at the White House,’ the ABC News reporter wrote. ‘Kardashian actually tried to do what Trump demanded, seeing it as a small price to pay to get justice for people she believed were serving unjust sentences. But all the players she approached declined,’ Karl said. ‘Trump had become too toxic. In the final two weeks of his presidency, nobody wanted to be anywhere near him.’
In a Truth Social post, Trump dubbed Karl a ‘Failed ABC Fake News repoter’ adding that he ‘works sooo hard, but has sooo little talent.’ ‘In the “book” he has the World’s most overrated celebrity, Kim Kardashian, supposedly telling me that she “would leverage her celebrity to get football stars to come to the White House,” if I would commute the sentences of various prisoners,’ Trump wrote. ‘This story is Fake News in that she would be the last person I asked to get football players.’
Trump then boasted that he had ‘many teams from all sports and leagues, in the White House.’ Kardashian never explicitly said she was a Biden supporter, though posted a picture of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris with three blue hearts after the Democrats won election over Trump in 2020. While Trump said on Truth Social that there were ‘many other false stories in Karl’s very boring book’ the journalist did report that Trump was angry with Kardashian’s Biden support.
Months after Trump left the White House, Kardashian reached out to him to see if he would be open to endorsing a high-profile clemency plea. She ‘quickly received a call back from Trump,’ Karl wrote. ‘Hell no, the former president told her. He wouldn’t do it. “You voted for Biden and now you come asking me for a favor?” Trump told her,’ the ABC newsman said. ‘After a few more choice words, the line went dead. Trump had hung up on her.’
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