Barack Obama's political 'advice' to Kanye West

David Jackson | USA TODAY

President Obama is handing out some free political advice — and wisecracks — for music mogul and potential White House candidate Kanye West.

“First of all, you’ve got to spend a lot of time dealing with some strange characters who behave like they’re on a reality TV show,” Obama told donors Saturday in San Francisco, an apparent reference to West’s wife, Kim Kardashian.

Speaking at event that also included West, Obama made reference to one of the rapper’s best known albums: “Saying that you have a ‘Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ — that’s what’s known as ‘off-message’ in politics … You can’t say something like that … There are a lot of people who have lost their congressional seats saying things like that.”

The current president also had a third piece of advice for West, who said on a recent awards show that he is running in 2020: “Do you really think that this country is going to elect a black guy from the South Side of Chicago with a funny name to be President of the United States? … That is crazy. That’s cray!”

All in good fun, presumably — and nicer than what Obama has said about West in the past, as ABC News explains:

After all, the president has called West a “jack—” twice: first in 2009 after West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the VMAs, then again in a 2012 interview with The Atlantic.

“He is a jack—,” Obama told the Atlantic in 2012. “But he’s talented.”