OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Rapper, designer and entrepreneur Kanye West, who changed his name to Ye, made a request of former President Donald Trump that he did not like.
It started when West announced his intention to campaign for President of the United States in 2024.
On Thursday and Friday, he shared images on Twitter with the captions #Ye24.
#YE24 pic.twitter.com/OR60id12oS
— ye (@kanyewest) November 25, 2022
He then shared video of a chat he had with former President Trump where he asked him a ridiculous question.
“I think the thing that Trump was most perturbed about [was] me asking him to be my vice president,” he said.
Kanye showing love to the J6 prisoners… https://t.co/cFAY97N0B9
— Darren J. Beattie 🌐 (@DarrenJBeattie) November 25, 2022
“Since … all the Christians in America that love Trump know that Trump is a conservative, we’re gonna demand that you hold all policies directly to the Bible,” the rapper said.
“Trump started basically screaming at me at the table, telling me I was going to lose. I mean, has that ever worked for anyone in history?” he said.
“I’m like, whoa, hold on, hold on, hold on. You’re talking to Ye,” he said.
It came a month after West agreed to purchase his own social media app after being banned on Instagram and Twitter.
Parlement Technologies, the company that owns Parler, said it has an agreement to sell ‘the world’s pioneering uncancelable free speech platform, to Ye (formerly known as Kanye West),’” The Wall Street Journal reported.
“In a world where conservative opinions are considered controversial, we have to make sure we have the right to express ourselves freely,” the rapper said.
“This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech,” Parler CEO George Farmer said. “Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.”
Days after the rapper and entrepreneur appeared on Fox News and spoke to Tucker Carlson Twitter locked him out of his account.
The lockout was not due to what he said on Carlson’s show, but rather vile comments he made about Jewish people on Twitter that were later deleted.
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” he said on Saturday night.
Twitter promptly deleted the tweet and then locked his account, the social media giant confirmed to Mediaite.
“The account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies,” a spokesperson for the company said to Mediaite.
He defended wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt with conservative commentator Candace Owens when he spoke to Carlson.
“The answer to why I wrote ‘White Lives Matter’ on a shirt is because they do,” he said.
He said he talked to his dad via text message about the shirt.
“I do certain things from a feeling. I just channel the energy. It just feels right. It’s using a gut instinct, connection with God and just brilliance. If you asked Tonya Harding how she did the triple flip or the triple spin, she was in so much practice that when it was time for her to skate in a competitive format, it just happened… That’s what’s happening. God is preparing us for the real battles,” the rapper said.
“We are in a battle with the media. The majority of the media has a godless agenda… [But] what I was saying [with] the comparison of Tonya Harding about the White Lives Matter [shirt], my dad is an educated ex-Black Panther and he put a text to me today, he said ‘White lives matter, hahahaha.’ I said, ‘I thought it was a funny shirt. I thought the idea of me wearing it was funny.’ And I said ‘Dad, why do you think it was funny?’ And he said, ‘Just a Black man stating the obvious,’” he said.
Carlson asked the rapper why he thinks some took the statement s controversial.
“Because the same people that have stripped us of our identity and labeled us as a color, have told us what it means to be Black,” the rapper said.
He spoke about when he wore former President Donald Trump’s “Make American Great Again” hat and why it made him a target.
“My so-called friends-slash-handlers around me told me if I said that I liked Trump that my career would be over, that my life would be over,” the rapper said. “They said stuff like, ‘People get killed for wearing a hat like that.’ They threatened my life. They basically said that I would be killed for wearing the hat.”
He said that “he didn’t know how close my own wife was to the Clintons.”
https://youtu.be/YL5dnoNYGfw
He said he felt pressure from his wife, Kim Kardashian, and others to walk back his support of Trump.
“Yes, there was manipulation,” the rapper said. “Me not saying I like Trump was a form of manipulation.”
