Kanye West Really Does Seem to Think He's Running for President

He's shared his platforms — anti-vaxxer, anti-abortion — and revealed he'll be leading the Birthday Party

BY Josiah HughesPublished Jul 8, 2020

Just because Kanye West has endorsed Trump and also benefitted from millions of dollars in COVID-19 loans doesn't mean he's okay with the way things are run in his country. That's why he announced he's running for president, a move that is starting to feel a little more real — and a little more sad — each day.

In a new interview with Forbes, Kanye revealed that he's been advised by Elon Musk and will run with Michelle Tidball, a preacher from Wyoming, as his running mate. His political party will be called the Birthday Party ("Because when we win, it's everybody's birthday") and his campaign slogan will simply be "YES!"

Kanye denied that his presidential bid was a publicity stunt, saying, "I give my album away for free." 

As for the criticism that he's potentially taking votes away from Joe Biden, Kanye said the following:

That is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all Black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote. All of that information is being charged up on social media platform by Democrats. And Democrats used to tell me, the same Democrats have threatened me…. The reason why this is the first day I registered to vote is because I was scared. I was told that if I voted on Trump my music career would be over. I was threatened into being in one party. I was threatened as a celebrity into being in one party. I was threatened as a Black man into the Democratic party. And that's what the Democrats are doing, emotionally, to my people. Threatening them to the point where this white man can tell a Black man if you don't vote for me, you're not Black.

As for Kanye's policy, well, he doesn't want to call it that.

"I don't know if I would use the word policy for the way I would approach things," he said. "I don't have a policy when I went to Nike and designed Yeezy and went to Louis and designed a Louis Vuitton at the same time. It wasn't a policy, it was a design. We need to innovate the design to be able to free the mind at this time."

Still, what others would call his policy include being anti-abortion ("Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil's work"), anti-vaxxer ("That's the mark of the beast. They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can't cross the gates of heaven") and, uh, pro-Wakanda ("I'm gonna use the framework of Wakanda right now because it's the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House").

Kanye only has approximately 30 days left to make his final decision about running before he will miss the deadline for most states, although he thinks the deadlines might be flexible due to the coronavirus.

The possible presidential prospect shared a new song called "Wash Us in the Blood" earlier this month. Its music video is available below.

Latest Coverage