Rapper Kanye West announces his running for presidentia,Twitter explodes
American rapper Kanye West, a vocal supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, announced on Saturday that he would run for president in 2020 in an apparent challenge to Trump and his presumptive Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“We must now realise the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future.
“I am running for president of the United States,” West wrote in a Twitter post, adding an American flag emoji and the hashtag “#2020VISION”.
It’s not clear if the musician is serious, or if this is a publicity stunt for himself or a project unrelated to the presidency.
West’s Saturday night Twitter post instantly went viral, with more than 100,000 retweets within the first hour. West has 29.3 million followers on Twitter.
It was not immediately clear if West was serious about vying for the presidency four months before the Nov. 3 election or if he had filed any official paperwork to appear on state election ballots.
The deadline to add independent candidates to the ballot has not yet passed in many states.
West and his equally famous wife Kim Kardashian West have visited Trump in the White House.
If West is serious, there is a long list of hurdles toward running that would be nearly insurmountable for most candidates, including starting a campaign from scratch in July of an election year. He would need to qualify for ballot access across 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as build a presidential-grade political organization from scratch without the support of a party infrastructure.
At the moment, West doesn’t appear to have filed forms with the Federal Election Commission to run for office, according to a Bloomberg review of FEC data.
At one meeting in October 2018, West delivered a rambling, profanity-laden speech in which he discussed alternative universes and his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which he said was actually sleep deprivation.
Elon Musk, the chief executive of electric-car maker Tesla and another celebrity known for eccentric outbursts, endorsed West’s Twitter post: “You have my full support!” he wrote.