When it comes to Kanye West, it seems that President Obama is thinking what the rest of the country is thinking.
The President called the rapper "a jackass" in an off-the-record comment during a CNBC interview yesterday, but the comment became public when it was tweeted by ABC's Terry Moran on Twitter, Politico.com reported Monday night.
An ABC statement explains: "ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview."
Meanwhile, West himself admitted to Jay Leno what Americans -and Obama - had already figured out: Kanye screwed up big-time.
And maybe he needs to figure out why.
Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper jumped on stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech and declared her award should have gone to Beyoncé Knowles.
After fielding a 24-hour firestorm of criticism and apologizing on his blog, West told Leno last night, "It was rude, period....I'm just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else's hurt."
West, who has had similar outbursts at previous awards shows, said, "I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I'm going to make it through the rest of this life, how I'm going to improve.
"If there's anything I could do to help Taylor in the future or help anyone, I'd like [to]," he said.
Swift, who was invited onstage later at the VMAs by Beyoncé to finish her interrupted comments, gets a chance to respond this morning, when she appears on ABC's "The View."
West's discomfort was a gift from ratings heaven to Leno, who was kicking off his new 10 p.m. show last night.
He wound up with the country's hottest celebrity story landing in his grateful lap.
West had been previously scheduled on the show as a performer only, with Jay-Z and Rihanna. Leno told the audience that because of what had happened the previous night, "Kanye wanted to talk."
Leno asked West when he knew what he did was wrong.
"As soon as I gave the mike back to her and she didn't keep going," West said.
Still, after Leno asked him how his deceased mother would have reacted to his actions, West was silent for so long that Leno came back with a second question to coax an answer.
The President called the rapper "a jackass" in an off-the-record comment during a CNBC interview yesterday, but the comment became public when it was tweeted by ABC's Terry Moran on Twitter, Politico.com reported Monday night.
An ABC statement explains: "ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview."
Meanwhile, West himself admitted to Jay Leno what Americans -and Obama - had already figured out: Kanye screwed up big-time.
And maybe he needs to figure out why.
Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper jumped on stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech and declared her award should have gone to Beyoncé Knowles.
After fielding a 24-hour firestorm of criticism and apologizing on his blog, West told Leno last night, "It was rude, period....I'm just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else's hurt."
West, who has had similar outbursts at previous awards shows, said, "I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I'm going to make it through the rest of this life, how I'm going to improve.
"If there's anything I could do to help Taylor in the future or help anyone, I'd like [to]," he said.
Swift, who was invited onstage later at the VMAs by Beyoncé to finish her interrupted comments, gets a chance to respond this morning, when she appears on ABC's "The View."
West's discomfort was a gift from ratings heaven to Leno, who was kicking off his new 10 p.m. show last night.
He wound up with the country's hottest celebrity story landing in his grateful lap.
West had been previously scheduled on the show as a performer only, with Jay-Z and Rihanna. Leno told the audience that because of what had happened the previous night, "Kanye wanted to talk."
Leno asked West when he knew what he did was wrong.
"As soon as I gave the mike back to her and she didn't keep going," West said.
Still, after Leno asked him how his deceased mother would have reacted to his actions, West was silent for so long that Leno came back with a second question to coax an answer.
