While there are celebrities who have applauded President Donald Trump granting clemency to 63-year-old Alice Marie Johnson, D.L. Hughley isn’t one of them.
Upon news breaking that Kim Kardashian’s meeting with Trump last week to free the great-grandmother from her mandatory life-plus-25-years prison sentence, stars like Kandi Burruss and Yandi Smith celebrated. However, Hughley says the sentences Trump hasn’t commuted speaks volumes.
“I think that when you pardon one Black person but you have set rules in place in terms of hiring federal judges or an attorney general that send more Black people to jail for the same situation she was in, it’s Three-card Monte,” Hughley tells TMZ Wednesday, June 6.
“A lot of people confused activity with accomplishment, I don’t” he continues. “Letting [Johnson] go but setting up a system that sends more people to prison and more people who are gonna be in the exact situation, it does the exact same thing.”
Hughley said he won’t give Trump any credit for commuting Johnson’s sentence, saying the president essentially played a trick on the public that won’t lead to long-term changes.
“He did something that makes people think [he’s] done something,” the radio show host says.
On the idea of Kardashian wading into politics, Hughley said the two aren’t so different.
“Kim Kardashian and politicians gotta show they ass to get ahead,” he says before noting he wouldn’t support the reality star or Kanye West in a political career. “I can’t pretend like I see things I don’t. I’m extremely pleased that [Johnson’s] free and Meek Mill is free but there are hundreds of thousands of people in that exact same position. Are we gon free ’em all? Or just the ones who can get us a photo-op?”
