UNITED STATES (Forbes) – Kanye West says he is running a serious campaign for the White House under the banner of a self-styled “Birthday Party” committed to a presidency modeled after the fictional nation Wakanda in the film Black Panther.
Forbes magazine published a story on Wednesday based on what it called “four rambling hours of interviews” with the 43-year-old musician and fashion designer who said he had dropped his support of U.S. President Donald Trump.
West, who has said he has bipolar disorder, announced his candidacy for the Nov. 3 election in a brief tweet on the weekend, but he has yet to file any necessary paperwork to get on the ballot.
In the Forbes interview, West said he had never before voted in an election and had no campaign apparatus of any kind, but added: “Like anything I’ve ever done in my life, I’m doing (this) to win.”
In 2015 the singer announced his intention to seek the presidency but did not follow up. His wife, Kim Kardashian at the weekend, retweeted his latest announcement but has not commented since.
West’s Yeezy sneaker and fashion line have made him a billionaire, but some of his interviews and speeches have raised concerns about his mental health in recent years.
In an interview with the Real Clear Politics news website on Tuesday, Trump said West had a “real voice.”
Once one of the Republican Trump’s biggest celebrity supporters, West, told Forbes he was “taking the red hat off” in the interview. West said he no longer supports Donald Trump — “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview” — and won’t vote for Joe Biden. Still called Trump “special” and the “closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.“
“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,” West told Forbes.
He also said he was calling his party the “Birthday Party” because “when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.”
West claimed he contracted Covid-19 in February but absolutely opposes vaccines. He calls them “the mark of the beast.” In the interview with Forbes, he advocated a conspiracy that a coronavirus vaccine could be used to implant microchips into people. “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.”
The remark about chips seems to refer to prevalent—and debunked—conspiracy theories that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is attempting to implant microchips into billions of people through a coronavirus vaccine, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci said: “every American should be microchipped.”
West also referred to another disproven conspiracy theory–that Gates tested a polio vaccine in India and paralyzed nearly 500,000 children–saying, “so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralyzed.”
Regarding his campaign, Kanye also told Forbes that Elon Musk is advising him. His campaign slogan will be “YES!” and his running mate will be a preacher named Michelle Tidball.
In the interview, West said he hasn’t developed a foreign policy yet but is anti-abortion, and that “he believed that Planned Parenthood groups” -which provide reproductive healthcare and education, “have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work. I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the bible.” He also said he is “pro-Wakanda,” the fictional country in Marvel’s “Black Panther.”
Wakanda forever!
“A lot of Africans do not like the movie and representation of themselves in… Wakanda” he said. “I’m going to use Wakanda’s framework right now because it’s the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House,” he added.
This interview make several people around the world wonder were the political future of the United States is going.
