CANCÚN, Mexico—Snoop Dogg wants to combat “division” in America, despite his “love” for Donald Trump and apparent indecisiveness about this year’s election. But a lot of what he has to say about the state of the country sounds like it could be in a Kamala Harris ad.
Snoop said Monday that he decided to be a commentator at this year’s Paris Olympics to show the rest of world another view of Americans that contrasts the division he feels the country’s become known for abroad.
“The first thing I wanted to do [at the Olympics] was represent America, but in a wholesome way—as far as, with no division [and] no separation,” Snoop said at Raising Cane’s Canecún employee retreat in Mexico, where he was a featured guest and performer. “So my spirit was, how does the world look at America?”
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Snoop was a big presence at this year’s Olympics, where he’d joined NBC as a guest commentator and became the source of several viral moments at the games. The rapper discussed why the move was important to him during a Q&A with Cane’s CEO Todd Graves, where he said he thought, “Let me be the representation of what an American is.”
Snoop Dogg with Raising Cane's CEO Todd Graves at the company's Cancecún event.
Eboni Boykin-PattersonThough Snoop expressed his dislike for how America looks abroad amidst its divisions, he never indicated which side of the political spectrum he felt the “division” was coming from. In an interview earlier this year with The Times of London, he told the newspaper he had “nothing but love and respect” for former President Trump. “He has done only great things for me,” Snoop told the newspaper, namely that Trump “pardoned [Death Row Records cofounder] Michael Harris” at his behest.
But when asked by The Times who he supported for president this time around, Snoop sidestepped: “I want to see what the people say.” In past elections, he supported Libertarian candidate Ron Paul before rallying behind President Obama in 2012, and was a frequent critic of Trump before the former president pardoned his friend in 2021. Snoop told The Daily Beast in 2017 that he was indifferent toward Trump, describing himself as “not a fan” of the president but also “not a hater.”
His tune would continue to change until Michael Harris was released, including as recently as 2019 when he encouraged federal employees not to vote for Trump in an Instagram video: “Ain’t no f---ing way in the world y’all can vote for Donald Trump when he come back up again. If y’all do vote for him, y’all some stupid motherf---ers.” Two years later, despite Snoop’s misgivings, Trump still pardoned Michael Harris—and the rapper hasn’t had much more direct Trump criticism to share publicly since.
Snoop’s bestie Martha Stewart, on the other hand, with whom he was seen in matching equestrian outfits at the Olympics and also stopped criticizing Trump publicly around the same time, broke her silence recently about the election when she said she wanted to vote for someone “who doesn’t hate New York” and “doesn’t hate democracy” as she endorsed Harris.
Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart view the equestrian team dressage final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Chateau de Versailles, in Versailles.
AFP via Getty ImagesThe rapper has not come close to a similar endorsement of the Democratic candidate. And yet the vision of America Snoop expressed comes off as very Harris-coded, as he tried to walk the line of neutrality at the boozy retreat. “[An American] is somebody that’s full of fun, full of love, full of joy, approachable, lovable,” he said, “so I was the American that the world got a chance to see what America’s like.”
Harris has consistently billed herself, Tim Walz, and her supporters as “joyful warriors” in contrast to Trump’s campaign, which even some Republicans admit is hampered by his excessive grievances.
So while we still don’t know who he will be voting for this November, Snoop was resolved that his Olympics appearances helped combat some of the negativity in America's politics—at least in in the eyes of other countries. For people who “had never been [to America] before,” Snoop hopes they now “want to come to America, based off of the way I represented for the country.”
