On the Fourth of July, Kanye West declared he was running for president via tweet. The Jesus Is King rapper has now doubled down on his intention to enter the 2020 presidential race in an interview with Forbes, where he revealed his running mate — Wyoming preacher Michelle Tidball— ended his Donald Trump endorsement and shared that he had Coronavirus in February.
The interview revealed ‘Ye as pro-life, anti-death penalty and “extremely cautious” of vaccines, including a potential one for COVID-19. While Kanye is planning to run under his own political party — dubbed the Birthday Party — he also said that he would run as a Republican if Trump ends his campaign. If not, he’ll run as an Independent.
“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,” he told the magazine. “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.”
Kanye further criticized Democratic nominee Joe Biden for the remarks he made on “The Breakfast Club,” where he claimed Black voters “ain’t Black” if they vote for Trump over him.
“A lot of times just like political parties they feel all Blacks have to be Democrat. This man, Joe Biden, said if you don’t vote for me, then you are not Black. Well, act like we didn’t hear that? We act like we didn’t hear that man say that? That man said that. It’s a rap,” Kanye said. “… For the other candidates, I just gracefully suggest y’all bow out—Trump and Biden, gracefully bow out… I am in service of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and I put everything I get on the line to serve God.”
In terms of his proposed presidential model, Kanye remained vague about taxation and foreign policy and said that he’d like to run the White House like Wakanda, the fictional country in the movie Black Panther.
“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,” he told the outlet. “Like in the movie, in Wakanda when the king went to visit that lead scientist to have the shoes wrap around her shoes. Just the amount of innovation that can happen, the amount of innovation in medicine—like big pharma—we are going to work, innovate, together. This is not going to be some Nipsey Hussle being murdered, they’re doing a documentary, we have so many soldiers that die for our freedom, our freedom of information, that there is a cure for AIDS out there, there is going to be a mix of big pharma and holistic.”
In response to the death of George Floyd, Kanye said “one of my to-do lists is to end police brutality.”
“The schools [and] infrastructure was made for us to not truly be all we can be but to be just good enough to work for the corporations that designed the school systems,” he continued. “We’re tearing that up, what we’ll do is we’re not going to tear up the Constitution, what we will do is amend.”
Forbes noted that Kanye has a month to make a final decision about running for president before meeting the deadline. The Chicago native reportedly has not filled out any of the necessary paperwork to be included on the ballot yet. Read more of Kanye’s stances here.