Kanye West has endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election race, despite having been described by him in the past as “a seriously troubled man”.
A reporter stopped the rapper yesterday (February 13) asking him if he plans to support the former president in his attempt to return to the White House in the November election, and West was clear in his response.
“Yeah, of course, it’s Trump all day,” he said. “What you talking about? You know what it is.” Check out the moment captured on video below.
Ye is supporting Trump for the 2024 presidential elections pic.twitter.com/SE7J9OlI1Q
— Donda Times (@dondatimes) February 13, 2024
After a personal meeting between West and Trump in 2022, Trump wrote that the rapper was “a seriously troubled man” who has been “decimated in his business”. “I told him don’t run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win,” he continued.
West and Trump’s relationship stems as far back as 2015, the year when West first announced his intention to run for president in 2020. Trump later told Rolling Stone that he “hope[d] to run against [West] someday”. The following year, West declared to crowds at his Saint Pablo Tour that “if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted for Trump”, before meeting with Trump at the Trump Towers in New York City.
During his time in office, West was a vocal supporter of Trump, and even asked the business mogul to be his running mate when he aims to become US President in 2024.
West was a US presidential candidate in 2020 but went on to concede his run after winning 50,000 votes. At the time of his withdrawal, he announced plans to run again in 2024, an intention he reaffirmed in 2022 while enlisting alt-right voice Milo Yiannopoulos to assist with his campaign.
However, in October last year, West’s personal attorney Bruce Marks told Rolling Stone that the rapper “is not a candidate for office in 2024”. Official federal election documents also appeared to confirm that no money had been allocated for primary expenses on any new presidential campaign.
In 2018, the rapper famously wore a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat during his appearance as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live. The rapper’s Trump-related tangent during the broadcast was cut off to the general viewing public, with Trump later tweeting that West’s appearance “was great”.
More recently, in November last year, Trump again voiced his support for West, in contradiction to his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. A book by news reporter Jonathan Karl had alleged that Kardashian had organised for NFL stars to visit the White House during Trump’s term, in exchange for reduced sentences for the prisoners for whom Kardashian was advocating.
“I did help with prisoner commutation, but only if deserving, and much more so for Kanye West than for Kim, who probably voted for Crooked Joe Biden, and look at the mess our Country is in now,” Trump wrote in response to the suggestion.
More so than Kanye, Trump appears more interested in Taylor Swift these days, recently claiming that he made the singer “so much money” by signing the Music Modernization Act, even though Swift did not greatly benefit from the law.
It is reported that Joe Biden’s team are eagerly seeking official endorsement from Swift ahead of the election. She previously endorsed Biden in 2020 through a video message on her Instagram on the eve of the presidential election, and last year she led record-breaking numbers to the Vote.org website after encouraging her fans to register to vote.
In response to the rumours, Trump allies have pledged “holy war” against Swift if she does endorse Biden.