Despite several scandals surrounding his recent behavior, rapper Kanye West has stated his intention to run for President of the United States in 2024.
The actor, who has legally changed his name to Ye, shared a video of his campaign logo with the caption “Ye 24” on social media.
He also claimed to have approached Donald Trump about becoming his running mate.
West previously ran for president in 2020, but his campaign was a flop, garnering only 70,000 votes.
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His latest claims were made in a video posted after West was spotted at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club earlier this week, accompanied by prominent white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
West stated that his request for a running mate “most perturbed” the former president, who recently launched his own re-election campaign.
Kanye West announces 2024 presidential bid
West claimed in a video titled Mar-a-Lago Debrief: “Trump began yelling at me at the table, telling me I was going to lose.” “Has anyone in history ever succeeded in doing so?”
West’s campaign debuts at a time when the rapper is embroiled in a number of damaging controversies.
He sparked outrage after wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “White Lives Matter” to Paris Fashion Week in 2015, a phrase adopted by white supremacists in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
West then claimed that his critics were being paid by a secret Jewish cabal, a common antisemitic trope.
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As he continued to make anti-Semitic comments online and in television interviews, his talent agency dropped him, and fashion companies such as Gap, Adidas, and Balenciaga said they would no longer work with him.
Later, the musician stated that he had lost “two billion dollars in one day.”
Rolling Stone magazine reported earlier this week that West allegedly used “porn, bullying, and mind games” to create a “toxic environment” among Adidas employees working on his Yeezy brand shoes.
On Thursday, the company announced the launch of an independent investigation into the allegations.
When Mr. West announced his presidential campaign in 2020, he was too late to appear on the ballot in at least six states.
He only held one rally, during which he broke down in tears while discussing abortion, and he funded two television commercials. He was only listed as a candidate in 12 states in the end.
The rapper claimed to have hired alt-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos as his campaign manager for his 2024 bid.
Mr. Yiannopoulos, a former editor at the right-wing publication Breitbart, was largely shunned by mainstream conservatives after a video surfaced in 2017 in which he appeared to condone pedophilia. He described the remarks as “gallows humor” and expressed “disgust” at the sexual abuse of minors.
Mr. Yiannopolous most recently worked as an intern for Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
