Kanye West is done with Donald Trump.
In an utterly wild interview with Forbes magazine, the star—one of Trump’s most prominent and unusual celebrity backers—announced that he no longer supports the president, saying, “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview.” West didn’t explain exactly what was the final straw that made him rescind his support for Trump.
In fact, his train of thought throughout the interview is extremely confusing. West also described Trump as the “closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.” When asked to explain what he was thinking when he donned the MAGA hat in the first place, he claimed it was “as a protest to the segregation of votes in the Black community. Also, other than the fact that I like Trump hotels and the saxophones in the lobby.”
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However, West appears to have been upset by how Trump has dealt with the coronavirus pandemic. Without specifying exactly what he meant, the star said, “It looks like one big mess to me.” He also added, “I don’t like that I caught wind that he hid in the bunker.” West went on to claim he contracted the coronavirus in February but is skeptical of vaccines, calling them “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,” he theorized, adding that this notion was “the saddest thing.”
What might have also influenced his decision to abandon Trump is his apparent intention to run for president this year. In the interview, West discussed his announcement that he plans to run for president and strenuously denied it was a publicity stunt to promote his upcoming album, explaining, “I give my album away for free.”
In his first comments fleshing out his political ambitions, West said that he’s running under the banner of the Birthday Party, “because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.” His campaign slogan will, according to the magazine, simply be “YES!” His running mate will be an obscure preacher called Michelle Tidball, and West claims that he is currently receiving campaign advice from Elon Musk.
“Like anything I’ve ever done in my life... I’m doing to win,” he said, according to Forbes. West said he doesn’t mind if he takes Black votes away the Democratic nominee and actually helps Trump, saying, “I’m not denying it, I just told you. To say that the Black vote is Democratic is a form of racism and white supremacy.”
In fact, West appears happier to take digs at Joe Biden than Trump. The rapper said. “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.”
It’s not clear exactly what type of president West would be. Asked about his foreign policy, he admitted, “I haven’t developed it yet.” Asked further about any of his policies, he responded, “I don’t know if I would use the word ‘policy’ for the way I would approach things. 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.”
The clearest vision he offered was based on the movie Black Panther: “A lot of Africans do not like the movie and representation of themselves in… Wakanda,” he said. “But 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.”
West appears to accept that he may not win this year, saying, “Let’s see if the appointing is at 2020 or if it’s 2024—because God appoints the president. If I win in 2020 then it was God’s appointment. If I win in 2024 then that was God’s appointment.”
