Kanye West has come under significant criticism, especially from within the hip-hop and African-American communities, for his outspoken support for President Donald Trump in recent months. | Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP White House White House: Kanye West will have lunch with Trump on Thursday

Hip-hop mogul Kanye West will have lunch with President Donald Trump and meet with top administration adviser Jared Kushner at the White House this week, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Tuesday morning.

“Kanye West is coming to the White House to have lunch with President Trump and he will also meet with Jared Kushner," she said in a statement issued via the White House press pool. "Topics of discussions will include manufacturing resurgence in America, prison reform, how to prevent gang violence, and what can be done to reduce violence in Chicago.”


West's meeting with the president is scheduled for Thursday, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in an email to POLITICO, confirming an earlier New York Times report.

West has come under significant criticism, especially from within the hip-hop and African-American communities, for his outspoken support for Trump in recent months. The rapper wore a "Make America Great Again" hat during an appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" last month and wrote on Twitter in April that "you don't have to agree with Trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother.”

Trump has reciprocated the warm words, telling Fox News in April that West "has got good taste" and crediting him with an uptick in his polling numbers among African-Americans.

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West recently deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts after a deluge of criticism followed his online suggestion that the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, be repealed. The rap star had previously told TMZ's newsroom that "when you hear about slavery for 400 years ... for 400 years? That sounds like a choice."

West's wife, Kim Kardashian West, has come to the White House for multiple meetings, most recently in September, when she met with members of the administration on criminal justice reform, an issue on which Kushner has taken the lead inside the White House. Kardashian West had previously met with Trump to seek the president's help in commuting the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense. Trump commuted Johnson's sentence one week after meeting with Kardashian West.