George Bush Forgives Kanye West for Calling Him a Racist

Did Today’s Matt Lauer force Kanye West to apologize to George W. Bush? West tweeted Tuesday night that Lauer had “tried to force my answers,” and that the interview was “very brutal and I came there only with positive intent.” A portion of West’s interview in which he says, “I would tell George Bush, in my moment of frustration, I didn’t have the grounds to call him a racist,” was played for Bush during the president’s Today interview Wednesday. Bush then said he could forgive the rapper. Separately, Bush acknowledged that his administration deserves some of the blame for the housing crisis and the recession, but that Congress should have done more. “My conscience is clear when it came to recognizing an impending problem,” Bush said. And he refused to get “roped into” the debate over the Islamic center near ground zero. Bush said, “I have no desire to debate. My debating days are over.”