Kid Cudi is the subject of a new profile in Esquire pegged to his role in Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino’s new HBO series We Are Who We Are. In the show, Cudi plays Richard Poythress, an American military officer stationed in Italy whose daughter is beginning to explore gender fluidity. Cudi’s character is written as a Trump supporter; in one scene, after receiving a pair of Make America Great Again hats in the mail, he excitedly attempts to share one with his daughter.

“I read the scripts and at first I was taken aback, because I have my beliefs,” Cudi says in the story. “I’m not a Trump supporter. I don’t know if the world knows that, but I was just really concerned about what people may think.” He later adds, “Look, it’s a character I’m playing and I was fully invested in that, you know? At the end of the day, I hope that people can accept that for what it is, and not go and be like, ‘Oh, shit, Cudi’s a Trump supporter now—he’s wearing a MAGA hat.'”

Cudi’s concerns were quite understandably amplified due to his longstanding connection to Kanye West, who helped Cudi rise to prominence and continues to collaborate with him to this day. Kanye, of course, has been known to rock a MAGA hat and is currently running a spoiler presidential campaign designed to hurt Joe Biden at the polls.

“I thought some people would be foolish about it and be like, ‘Oh, he must’ve talked to Kanye’ or ‘Kanye must’ve got to him’ or some shit like that,” Cudi says. “I think he knows where I stand, and I think he doesn’t bring it up to me. We just don’t talk about it. I totally disagree with it; I think he knows that. And if he doesn’t know, he knows now.” He tempers the critique with a word of affirmation: “That’s my brother. I’ll go on record: That’s my brother. I love him. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with everything he fucking says and he fucking does, you know?”