He also revealed he had coronavirus (and is sceptical about a vaccine) and said that Planned Parenthood does ‘the Devil’s work’ in a new interview
Kanye West has given a new, wide-ranging interview with Forbes, in which he expands on his plans to run for president, explains that he’s done with Donald Trump, and reveals that he had coronavirus back in February. This being Kanye, the interview also includes some controversial points – including his bizarre belief that “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work”.
Opening the interview, Kanye revealed that his 2020 presidential run would be under the name ‘The Birthday Party’ – not due to a particular love of Pinter, but because “when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday”. His running mate would be Michelle Tidball, a little-known preacher from Wyoming. He wants his mate Elon Musk to be head of the US space programme, naturally.
He also said that his support from Trump is over: “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview,” he said, later adding that the Trump presidency “looks like one big mess to me. I don’t like that I caught wind that he hid in the bunker.”
He’s not concerned about potentially siphoning Black votes off Joe Biden: “That is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all Black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote.” On Biden specifically, he said: “Joe Biden said if you don’t vote for me, then you are not Black. Well, act like we didn’t hear that?” He added: “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.”
On the coronavirus crisis, Kanye said he was himself sick with the disease back in February. “Chills, shaking in the bed, taking hot showers, looking at videos telling me what I'm supposed to do to get over it. I remember someone had told me Drake had the coronavirus and my response was Drake can’t be sicker than me!”
However, his views on a Covid-19 vaccine are what you might expect from someone who flirts with right wing ideas. “It’s so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralysed… So when they say the way we’re going to fix Covid is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious. That’s 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. I'm sorry when I say they, the humans that have the Devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is that we all won’t make it to heaven, that there’ll be some of us that do not make it.” Unsurprisingly, Kanye says the cure is more prayer.
The interview goes through a lot of other political stances for Kanye, including capital punishment (anti), prayer in schools (pro), and foreign policy (question mark). On taxes, Kanye says “I haven’t done enough research on that yet. I will research that with the strongest experts that serve God and come back with the best solution,” which seems like an extremely bad idea.
He also discussed abortion. Kanye said that he is “pro-life”, which is presumably why he’s so against Planned Parenthood. Earlier this year, social media users said they were quietly hopeful that Kanye West had renounced his MAGA views, given reports from GLC that he had given away his Trump gear, and his donations to George Floyd’s daughter. But it would seem that this was wishful thinking at best, fanfiction at worst – this is still the same Kanye West who performed at anti-gay preacher Joel Osteen’s megachurch. (You can donate to Planned Parenthood here if you have the means to do so.)
There is much, much more to the interview, though ultimately, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this is all just promo for his next album – Kanye does tend to come out with big publicity stunts when he has a record to promote, after all. Still, he insists in the interview that this is not the case, and that he’s dead serious about it all (even if he still hasn’t filed any of the relevant paperwork with the Federal Election Commission). You can read the full thing here to make up your own mind.
