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Obama joins celebrities, slams Kanye West

By DNAinfo Staff on September 15, 2009 5:20pm  | Updated on September 15, 2009 5:18pm

Taylor Swift says she'd be open to meeting Kanye West in the wake of his outburst during her acceptance speech Sunday at MTV's Video Music Awards.

So far, though, the country music star hasn't heard from him, she said Tuesday during an appearance on "The View." When asked if she'd want to meet the rapper, she answered, "Sure."

She also recounted what was going through her mind when she went to collect her award for Best Female Video.

"I'm going to get to thank the fans. This is so cool. Oh, Kanye West is here. Cool hair cut. What are you doing here? Then ouch. I guess I'm not going to get to thank the fans."

West jumped onstage to say the award belonged to Beyoncé, who sat, stunned, in the audience.

Kanye West stole the microphone from Taylor Swift at the VMAs at Radio City Music Hall on September 13, 2009.
Kanye West stole the microphone from Taylor Swift at the VMAs at Radio City Music Hall on September 13, 2009.
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AP

The encounter rattled Swift, she said, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. She had to get ready to perform.

Swift said "people backstage that were saying wonderful things about me, that had my back" are what gave her the strength to go back onstage.

She said she's also gotten a boost from Twitter users who rushed to her defense.

Meanwhile, West earned a fresh round of condemnation from everyone from the Commander-in-Chief to Jay Leno on Tuesday. 

President Barack Obama was overheard calling West "a jackass" during a pre-interview mike check on CNBC Tuesday. The off-the-record exchange was revealed in a Twitter post by ABC News reporter Terry Moran and the audio was posted on TMZ.com.

West snatched the microphone from Swift Sunday night while she was accepting her award for Best Female Video and said Beyonce, also a nominee in the category, had produced a better video and deserved the award.

The celebrity-studded crowd at Radio City Music Hall quickly booed his statement and the tweets that followed were equally angry.

Singer Pink, a performer at the show, tweeted, "Kanye West is the biggest piece of sh-- on earth. Quote me."

Katy Perry, also a nominee for Best Female Video,  condemned the rapper on Twitter, "It's like you stepped on a kitten."

"I was actually nominated in the same category that Taylor won and I was excited for her...so why can't you be??", said Kelly Clarkson in her personal blog.

Late-night talk show host Jay Leno raked West across the coals Monday night, asking the hot-headed rapper what his late mother would have thought of the outburst.

West wiped his eyes and sat in silence, then admitted he needed to "take some time off" to deal with his grief over his mother's sudden death from complications of plastic surgery in 2007.

It was the latest apology by West, who's already apologized to Swift, her mother and her fans in a blog posting. But West also peppered his apology with the line, "Beyonce's video was the best of this decade!!!"

West has since taken his apology down.

The conflict between West, Swift and Beyonce, who eventually won for Video of the Year and invited Swift to the stage to finish her acceptance, rose to the top of the blogosphere. 

Hundreds of members signed on to Facebook groups titled "Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift", "Kanye West Needs to Apologize to Taylor Swift" and "We Hate Kanye West for What he did to Taylor Swift"

Real estate mogul Donald Trump also weighed in on the controversy, calling for a boycot of the rapper's music so that "this kind of thing doesn't happen again," according to PerezHilton.com.

Below are a few of the celebrity condemnations of West's outburst.

P.Diddy: "I'm gonna say this, we should always have respect for each other! End of discussion."

John Mayer: "Big love to my girl @taylorswift13. A class act."

Joel Madden: "WOW Taylor Swift's first VMA and she didn't even get to ENJOY it. Kanye you were just a bully on that one man."