If you're wondering why Cardi B went viral last night, well, so was Cardi B. "Why am I trending?" she tweeted Wednesday night. The answer: a 58-second, expletive-studded video she posted to Instagram on the shutdown a few hours earlier that has now racked up 9 million views. (Watch it here.) Here's the bulk of what she says:
- "Hey, y'all. I just wanna remind you because it’s been a bit over three weeks, OK? It’s been a little bit over three weeks. Trump is now ordering, as in summonsing, federal government workers to go back to work without getting paid. Now I don’t wanna hear y’all motherf---ers talking about, 'Oh, but Obama shut down the government for seventeen days.' Yeah, b----! For health care! So your grandma could check her blood pressure ... Now I know a lot of y'all don’t care because y'all don’t work for the government, or y’all probably don’t even have a job, but this s--- is really f---ing serious, bro. This s--- is crazy. Like, our country is in a hellhole right now, all for a f---ing wall. ... I feel like we need to take some action. I don’t know what type of action, b----, because this is not what I do. But b----, I’m scared. This is crazy."
Some senators took note. Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii tweeted he was pondering whether to retweet it. "Omg, I had the same argument with myself 30 minutes ago!" responded Sen. Chris Murphy. Schatz fired back, "Ok you do it. And say retweets are not endorsements, especially the language, and I will retweet." Chuck Schumer eventually got in on their conversation. (Spoiler alert: none of them did.) At Slate, Matthew Dessem thinks the media could take a page from the rapper's book: "The 24-hour news cycle has brought us endless sophisticated analyses of everything Trump does, nuance on top of nuance ... Cardi B's statement ... is a refreshing reminder that not everything is complicated." The Washington Post has one unexpected related factoid: Cardi B is a presidential trivia buff. (More government shutdown stories.)
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