The bizarre, not quite real, not quite fake presidential campaign of Kanye West has had the GOP’s fingerprints all over it. Indeed, Republican operatives, including some linked to Donald Trump, are almost certainly using the rapper as a spoiler candidate to try to sabotage Joe Biden. But whether Ye or Trump, who have a shared love for attention, are themselves in cahoots has been an open question.
A newly-revealed contact between West and Trumpworld, however, will only fuel speculation that the campaigns are coordinating. According to the New York Times, West met in Colorado over the weekend with the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. West confirmed the Telluride rendezvous on Twitter, where he has fired off erratic and at-times concerning missives in recent weeks, but did not say what they discussed, other than the 2000 Black empowerment book PowerNomics by Dr. Claud Anderson.
The acclaimed rapper, who has been a vocal Trump supporter in recent years, donning the president’s signature red baseball cap, announced his presidential bid earlier this summer, though—like much of West’s public persona—it was difficult to discern whether the bid was sincere or performance. It’s still not entirely clear, but, with help from GOP operatives, he has filed petitions in recent weeks to get on the ballot in several states, including the battleground of Wisconsin, leading to speculation that he’s attempting to siphon Black votes from Biden to help Trump. Asked directly by Forbes last week if he was purposely working to undermine the Democratic nominee, West said he is “not denying it” and that he is “walking,” rather than running, for president. Trump, for his part, brushed aside the notion of any personal connection to West’s spoiler bid, but expressed fondness for the rapper and designer and said “he’s always been very nice to me.” “I like him,” Trump said in a recent press conference. “I like his wife,” the president added, referring to Kim Kardashian West, who has lobbied Trump and Kushner on criminal justice issues.
Coordinated dirty trick or not, West’s so-called “2020 Vision” might not be able to deliver—and not just because the effort to undercut Biden and Kamala Harris is so laughably transparent. As my colleague Emily Kirkpatrick pointed out earlier this week, West’s campaign is facing questions of electoral fraud. In Illinois, his home state, his petition was challenged because more than half of his 2,500 required signatures weren’t valid. He ran into similar issues in New Jersey, where he withdrew his petition after over 700 suspicious signatures were questioned by an elections attorney. “It was so clearly deficient that it wasn’t even worth defending,” lawyer Scott Salmon said of West’s petition. “I wish it wouldn’t have gotten this far.”
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