“Trump started basically screaming at me… telling me I was going to lose,” West claimed in one of three videos promoting his candidacy.
A few days after visiting Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Kanye West discussed the meeting in campaign videos in support of his presidential campaign in 2024.
Earlier this week, West confirmed his bid for the White House, saying he had enlisted the support of controversial right-wing figure Milo Yiannopoulos to help in his presidential campaign. Yesterday (November 24), it was reported that West visited Trump, who also announced his candidacy last week, at the estate of the former president in Florida.
The rapper was spotted strolling through Miami Airport with Nick Fuentes, a right-wing political columnist with documented white supremacist tendencies. West confirmed his visit to Trump on Wednesday by posting a tweet that read: “For the first time at Mar-a-Lago.” According to the report, West said he “made President Trump wait” and “asked him to be my running mate in 2024.”
Today (November 25), West shared what looks like a presidential campaign video in which he discusses Trump’s visit as part of the “MAR-A-LAGO DEBRIEF.” The rapper said his offer to Trump to become his vice president was “lower on the list of things that caught [Trump] by surprise,” instead stating that the politician was “most concerned” about “the fact that I came with intelligence.”.
West then discusses Fuentes, whom he called a “loyalist” of Trump, and conveyed his advice to Trump to “go and get these people that the media tried to cancel and told you to move away.” As part of this line of recruiting “loyalists,” West referred to the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which was led by Trump supporters, saying: “Why, when you had the chance, didn’t you release the supporters on January 6?
Elsewhere in the video, West claimed that the couple discussed his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, referring to her attempts in 2018 to get Trump to pardon former inmate Alice Johnson. According to West, Trump said he “didn’t get [Johnson] out of jail… for Kim, he did it for me.” The rapper relayed Trump’s comment about the Kardashians, but squeaked an exact quote. “This is the mother of my children,” Kanye replied.
Near the end of the video, West said that conservative Christians “will demand that [Trump] adhere to all policies directly to the Bible.” He concluded the video by stating that “Trump started just yelling at me… telling me I was going to lose,” to which he replied: “You’re talking to Ye.” At the end of the video, a splash screen appeared with the text: “YE24”, which West also used as a hashtag for the post.
West used the hashtag and the image “YE24” in three additional campaign videos, the first of which features footage of the news anchor talking about his former partnership with Adidas. The video begins with a title page that reads, “Adidas has just frozen all of Ye’s bank accounts and sued him for $275 million in advertising fees,” and is interspersed with footage of West sitting in a white room.
In the second video, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson talks about West’s decision to wear a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at Paris Fashion Week in October. Carlson’s report is interspersed with footage of fellow rapper Diddy sympathizing with Kanye.
“Look, I forgive him for what he said,” Diddy commented in an interview used for the video, “because I already identify with some things happening that I don’t understand.” A clip of comedian Dave Chappelle also appears in the video, along with text messages West allegedly received from famed personal trainer Harley Pasternak (whom Ye tweeted about earlier this month after his return to the platform).
The final video shows what looks like West’s campaign logo — a sparkling circle next to the text: YE24.
Trump and West’s relationship dates back to 2015, when West first announced his intention to run for president in 2020. Trump later told Rolling Stone that he “hopes [d] to run against [the West] someday.” The following year, West told the crowd during his St. Pablo tour that “if I voted, I would vote for Trump,” before meeting with Trump at Trump Towers in New York.
In 2018, West wore a “Make America Great Again” hat during his appearance as a musical guest on the Saturday Night Live show. The rapper’s attitude toward Trump during the broadcast was turned off to the general public, and Trump later tweeted that West’s appearance “was great.”
In recent months, West has faced a wave of backlash after posting a number of anti-Semitic remarks online, including one in which he said he did not believe in the term “anti-Semitism.” He was subsequently suspended from Twitter and Instagram, and several companies stopped cooperating with him, including Adidas, which officially ended Yeezy’s partnership with the rapper.
