Call it a stab of patriotism on the Fourth of July. Or maybe just another way to get attention for a single news cycle.
Whatever the reason, rapper Kanye West tweeted Saturday that he is running for president this year, a threat he has made before.
“Now we must deliver on America’s promise by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future,” he said on the current president’s favorite social media platform. “I am running for President of the United States! # 2020VISION.”
His wife and potential first lady, Kim Kardashian West, retweeted him.
He even received the backing of SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Tesla, and the baby’s name fame.
“You have all my support!” Musk tweeted in response to West.
It marked at least the third time West promised to run for the top office in the nation. At the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, he announced: “In 2020 I decided to run for president.”
That was the first and last time anyone heard of his desire that year to become leader of the free world.
At the Fast Company Festival of Innovation last year, he said he would race in 2024 and was considering using the name of Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West.
The audience laughed.
“What are they laughing at?” he said. “When I ran for president in 2024, we would have created so many jobs that I’m not going to run, I’m going to walk.”
The hip-hop star and fashion entrepreneur have come under fire for her friendship with President Donald Trump, a Republican who has little support among African-Americans.
“His power is not just voting Democrats for the rest of our lives,” West said at the Fast Company festival. “That is not power, just voting on who we were told to vote for. That is not where the power is.”
West met Trump at the White House, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. In April, he hinted that he would vote for his friend in the November elections.
But if West falls in the 2020 race, his friend Trump would become his political enemy.
