And just like that, he’s gone.
Kanye West has reportedly dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, less than two weeks after he jumped in. A “get-out-the-vote specialist” named Steve Kramer claims the billionaire rapper is already “out” after hiring “paid and volunteer” staff to help him get on ballots in Florida and South Carolina, according to a new report from Intelligencer.
On July 4, Kanye West wrote on Twitter that he was running for president. In an interview with Forbes, West said that his campaign slogan was “YES!”; that his vice presidential choice was Michelle Tidball, a preacher from Wyoming; that his is platform was based on The Wakanda Management Model; and that his party was “The Birthday Party.”
Why The Birthday Party? “Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday,” West said.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1279575273365594112
West apparently figured out that he had little chance to win.
Kramer told Intelligencer that West’s hired staff were “disappointed” that West has allegedly dropped out. He also claimed to have “nothing good or bad to say about Kanye.”
“Everyone has their personal decision about why they make decisions. Running for president has to be one of the hardest things for someone to actually contemplate at that level,” Kramer added.
Intelligencer claimed West needed “132,781 valid signatures from Florida voters in less than a week.”
In his Forbes interview, West said he’s no longer a backer of President Trump. “I’m taking the red hat off,” West said. The reason? “I don’t like that I caught wind that he hid in the bunker,” West said, referring to the time Secret Service agents took Trump to an underground safe room on May 29 amid violent riots near the White House (Trump later said he was there just to inspect the site).
But West is still a fan of the president. “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation,” he said.
And the famed rapper, now officially a billionaire, said he wouldn’t spend much time bashing Trump, although he does plan to take aim at former Vice President Joe Biden. “I’m not saying Trump’s in my way, he may be a part of my way. And Joe Biden? Like come on man, please. You know? Obama’s special. Trump’s special. We say Kanye West is special. America needs special people that lead. Bill Clinton? Special. Joe Biden’s not special.”
West also blasted Democrats, especially Biden’s contention that blacks should be expected to vote Democratic.
“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 platforms by Democrats,” West said. “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.”
The former vice president in May sat down with Charlamagne tha God on his popular radio show “The Breakfast Club,” and at one point told the host, who is black, that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
