Chris Wallace teases Sunday interview with ‘bestie’ Ice Cube

Chris Wallace will interview Ice Cube this weekend, with the “Fox News Sunday” anchor joking the pair are now “besties” after having “a very interesting conversation” about the rapper’s reported work with the Trump administration.

The announcement of the Ice Cube interview comes after he said he was “banned” from appearing on CNN earlier this month, alleging the network “can’t handle the truth”

So the POWERS that be cancelled my interview on @CuomoPrimeTime tonight. I’ve actually been ban from @CNN for a few months so I was surprised they even asked. But it seems like they can’t handle the truth.

— Ice Cube (@icecube) October 15, 2020

“Ice Cube — the famous rapper, N.W.A., ‘Straight Outta Compton’ — he came out with a ‘Contract with Black America’ in the summer. Met with Jared Kushner and kind of endorsed the Trump Platinum Plan. Took tremendous backlash from the Black community,” Wallace said on “America’s Newsroom” on Friday morning in previewing the interview. 

After a Trump adviser tweeted earlier this month that Ice Cube had helped to develop President Trump’s Platinum Plan for African Americans, the rapper clarified that both Republicans and Democrats reached out to him after he released his Contract with Black America. Ice Cube said Trump’s team made adjustments to its plan after speaking with him, while the Biden campaign said they’d address the initiative after the election.

“We have a very interesting conversation with Cube. I now just call him Cube because we are besties. And you’ll be interested to hear it. It’s Chris and Cube on ‘Fox News Sunday,’” an amused Wallace said.   

The two-time presidential debate moderator also praised NBC’s Kristen Welker’s performance the night before in her first turn as a general election debate moderator. 

“A lot of talk is being made about the mute button. I don’t really think that was the key. The key was that the president and his team realized that his tactics in the first debate — being so aggressive, interrupting more than 145 times — didn’t work. People didn’t like it. He took a hit in the polls. So Plan A not working, he went to Plan B which was to have a civil substantive debate,” Wallace said, adding: “Kristen Welker did a very good job as the moderator.”