John Legend talked to CNBC's John Harwood about a range of issues and topics, including his complicated relationship with pro-Trump rap superstar Kanye West, who is slated to have lunch with the president Thursday. Here is a portion of the interview:

John Harwood: Has anybody told you to shut up and sing?

John Legend: Of course they've told me to shut up and sing. When it comes to actors and entertainers, more of us lean toward the left. So the right has kind of taken on this idea that celebrities should shut up. Of course, they just elected a celebrity, who hosted Celebrity Apprentice of all shows. They're happy to have, you know, whatever B-list actors - they'll take anybody that will come to them. They're so happy that Kanye is on team MAGA now and they're embracing it. So, they don't want you to shut up. They want you to shut up if you don't agree with them

Harwood: Well, it's interesting because your friend, Kanye West, stands for the proposition that you just mentioned about not everybody going in the same direction. I'm very interested in what looked to me like a two-level conversation you were having with him that broke into the public. It looked to me like, you as a friend, were sending him a message to try to persuade him that an argument that he was making was not right. Why did he do that?

Legend: Well, I'm not going to try to explain why he does anything. I don't have the degrees to explain all the things that he does, but I feel like I was a bit shocked that he shared the text exchange between us.

Harwood: You did not expect that to happen?