Disappointing. Hurtful. Misinformed.

That’s how rap superstar Jay-Z characterized President Trump’s reported comments at a Jan. 11 White House meeting, in which he told lawmakers that immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations were from “shithole countries,” according to senators who were with the president.

It’s been less than a month since those comments were made, but Trump’s words – and what they say about the broader issue of racism in America – have stayed with him, Jay-Z said in a CNN interview that aired Saturday.

“It really is hurtful, more so. Like everyone feels anger, but after the anger it’s really hurtful, because he’s looking down on a whole population of people, and he’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people and have beautiful everything,” he said. “Like, this is the leader of the Free World speaking like this.”

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, opened up to CNN’s Van Jones for the debut of “The Van Jones Show,” speaking about everything from his infant twins to his new album “4:44.”

But it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to Trump and his thoughts on race. In Jay-Z’s view, the president’s derogatory remarks merely pulled back the curtain on racist attitudes and conversations that already existed in the United States.

“This has been going on,” Jay-Z told Jones. “This is how people talk. This is how they talk behind closed doors.”

The rapper recalled a 2014 scandal in which Donald Sterling, then the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was revealed to have made racist remarks in a private phone call. The ensuing outrage caused the NBA to ban him for life.

But Jay-Z likened the consequences Sterling faced to spraying perfume on a trash can.

“It’s like, OK, that’s one way to do it. But another way would have been, let him have his team and then let’s talk about it together. Maybe some penalties,” Jay-Z said.

” ‘Cause once you (force Sterling to sell the team), all the other closet racists just run back in the hole. You haven’t fixed anything.”

That only meant racism would continue burbling under the surface until it resulted in a “superbug,” he added, implying that this was what led to a Trump presidency.

“You don’t take the trash out. You keep spraying whatever over it to make it acceptable and then, you know, as those things grow, then you create a superbug,” Jay-Z told Jones. “And then now we have Donald Trump, the superbug.”

Still, Jay-Z ended that segment of the interview on a relatively sympathetic note.

“Donald Trump is a human being, too,” he told Jones. “Somewhere along his lineage, something happened to him. Something happened to him and he’s in pain and he’s expressing it in this sort of way.”

Trump struck back at Jay-Z’s interview Sunday morning, tweeting that his policies were responsible for black unemployment being at “the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!” – and would someone please inform Jay-Z?

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