Excluding new details about the ongoing conversations between the rap-and-sneaker mogul and “my boy”, the president’s son-in-law, just as his spoiler campaign is heating up.
INKanye West’s bizarre presidential campaign has moved from Twitter side show to potential spoiler – the billionaire rapper released a website and campaign platform this week as he moves to get the vote in hot states – the people around him worrying more and more about his mental health problems. And specifically whether one consigliere is trying to exploit them. According to several sources, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner has been speaking regularly with West since his July 4 tweet and stated that he is running for president.
While Republican operatives rushed to try to get him on votes across the country, the New York Times reported earlier today that Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, met with West last weekend in Telluride, Colorado. The connection goes much further. West tells colleagues that he and Kushner talk “almost daily.” Forbes speaks to four people who have direct access to West as Kushner, including two with direct knowledge of their conversations.
One thing that those close to the Yeezy sneaker mogul, who is openly bipolar, suggest is his apparent misconception about his chances of winning: When I pointed out in an interview with West last week that he will not be in enough moods to win, and so the intent seems to be to run a spoiler campaign designed to offend presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, he responded, “I will not argue with you.” But a few hours after the story appeared, West responded with a change of heart: “THE GOAL IS TO WIN,” he blew in a tweet that was liked more than 260,000 times.
And that seems to be the message that Kushner fed him: “Jared is scared and does not want me to run because he knows I can win,” West told a number of staff members after his talks with the son-in-law. president, who also serves as the de facto head of Trump’s reelection campaign. That message, sources close to West acknowledge, is the exact one West will insert to stay in the race. “If you know him for more than 20 minutes, you know that will work,” says one West confidant. Adds another: “He is just like a child. The more you tell him he can not do anything, the more he will do it. . . . he has a great drive to prove people wrong. ”
Kushner seems to have had a major impact on West. Their relationship helped bring West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, to the White House for an immediate celebrity Oval Office meeting, and they collaborated on ideas for reforming the condemnation.
He is mentally ill. If you have people around him who see him as an opportunity, they create a very, very bad scenario.
When I interviewed West on July 7, three days after I told the world he was running, he spent the first hour discussing whether he would really move on. The first person he told me he would consult: Kushner. At the time, West also denied his support for Trump. “I take off my red hat, with this interview.” However, he remained envious of the criticism of the president, past a count about Trump hiding in the bunker during the Lafayette Park protest. “I was just talking to Jared,” he told me afterwards. ‘It makes sense that I attack them. Trump does not hit me, and I do not hit him, even in this. I really like having a citizen [competition], where people’s friends go up and play ball, play basketball without anyone coming to the hospital, you know? Biden was apparently not invited to the game: West did not need an incentive to go to the former vice president, whom he mocked as “not special.”
During that interview, West gave the details of an earlier conversation he had with Kushner. ‘I once spoke to Jared Kushner, who said,’ We do not have Black leaders – we just have hustlers. ‘ But why? Because they killed all the black leaders. When we later that day, before publication, to actually check the article, West, without fail, asked to remove the anecdote. “I love Jared,” West said. ‘I was just. . . that’s my boy, you know? That’s really my boy. That I do not keep the preference his name. ”
West did not respond to a request for comment today, nor did Kushner’s press team at the White House. “We have no knowledge of everything Kanye West does or who does it for him,” Trump spokesman Tim Murtaugh said earlier this month, a statement that is clearly not true. The president himself reiterated that message to White House reporters: “I love Kanye very much,” he added, “I have nothing to do with him on the ballot. I’m not involved.”
The Gambit of the White House, say those close to him, have accelerated West’s mental problems (no doubt brilliant, he has previously said Forbes that he considers his bipolar condition a ‘superpower’). “He’s mentally ill,” says a West friend. ‘If you have people around him who have the best of intentions and need nothing from him, you can send him when he is in a positive place in that space. If you have people around him who see him as an opportunity, they create a very, very bad scenario. ‘
Some close to West feel that Kushner is now falling into that last camp in ways that flirt with exploitation – regarding, after Kardashian West publicly asked for “compassion and empathy.” One described her understanding of Kushner’s conversations with West as ‘reverse psychology’. Others prescribe less malicious intent, though that narrative would require a level of naivety that would lead to sitting in a meeting at Trump Tower with Russians who promise they have filth about Hillary Clinton.
“Jared, why are you meeting him?” requires one source. “Tell him, ‘Hey, man, I saw you run for president – let’s talk when the election is over.'”
