But the actual problem I was thinking about was that Obama and Kanye had had a blowup of sorts a few years before. Several days after Kanye famously interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, Obama was chatting with John Harwood of CNBC before an interview when Harwood asked him if he had seen what Kanye had done. “I thought that was really inappropriate,” Obama responded offhandedly. “He’s a jackass.”