Instagram / Van JonesfWith her political activism, Kim Kardashian has won over CNN's Van Jones, who calls her "brilliant."
The reality star recently announced that she is studying to become a lawyer and has continued to push for criminal justice reform since she lobbied and met with President Donald Trump last year and helped convince him to commute the life sentence of Alice Johnson, who had been serving time in prison since 1996 for a first-time drug offense. Van Jones, a CNN political commentator, non-practicing attorney and former adviser to President Barack Obama, interviewed her soon after that meeting and months later, they reunited at the White House to attend a listening session on clemency issues.
"I think like a lot of people, I had a misimpression, I still had her kinda like frozen in time back in the Paris Hilton days," Jones said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on Thursday. "She's brilliant."
Jones added that he thinks Kardashian will make a good lawyer "because she's incredibly persuasive and persistent and she eats law books for like, breakfast."
He also said he keep in touch with her, communicating a couple times a week.
"She cares a lot about criminal justice, she's spent a lot of time going to visit women in prison," he said. "I think people thought it was some kind of publicity stunt a year ago. She's the only celebrity I know- usually, I'm calling celebrities, asking them to help me on cases. She calls me, asking me to help her on cases."
"It's a new Kim," he added.
Jones, a critic of Trump, also talked about seeing the president with Kardashian.
"It was like watching a ballerina hypnotize a grizzly bear," he said.
Kardashian has often been criticized over her dealings with the Republican U.S. leader, who is deeply unpopular in her home state of California.
"So many people have would say to me, 'Don't go to the White House, your career will be over. Don't go there,' and I just kinda weighed the decision where it was like, to save a life, or to get maybe bad tweets about me or a bad news story for a few days," she recently told Jones on CNN's Van Jones Show. "I guarantee you the people sitting behind bars do not care who the president is. They just want that relief. And so if I could have done that, I don't care."
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