Kanye West, who is (kind of) running for president, reportedly met last weekend with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, The New York Times reported.
After NYT reported on the meeting, West tweeted confirmation that he met with Kushner and offered to talk more about it publicly.
“I’m willing to do a live interview with the New York Times about my meeting with Jared where we discussed Dr. Claude Anderson’s book Powernomics,” West wrote on Twitter.
I’m willing to do a live interview with the New York Time about my meeting with Jared where we discussed Dr Claude… https://t.co/XC8FBj2zkq
— ye (@ye)1597203517.0
The meeting reportedly took place in Colorado, where West and his family have were camping and where Jared and Ivanka Kushner were traveling at the time. West flew to Telluride to meet with the Kushners.
Why is this notable? West has a very public positive relationship with President Donald Trump, so under normal circumstances a meeting between West and Kushner might not draw much attention.
But, West is running for president, and there have been reports and indications that Republican operatives are supporting the independent campaign as a way to draw votes away from Democratic nominee Joe Biden. From ABC News:
At least six operatives who have been prominently involved in the Republican political world have been linked to Kanye West‘s captivating 11th-hour independent 2020 presidential bid.
As the rivalry between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden intensifies with less than three months to go until the election, the involvement of the operatives in West’s campaign, some of whom have ties to Trump’s camp, raises questions about the motives of those helping to put his name on the ballot.
West is running as an independent, but has said he would have run as a Republican if President Donald Trump wasn’t running for reelection. His campaign, from the limited amount of information that has come from it, is overtly against the Democratic Party and anti-abortion.
“To say that the Black vote is Democratic is a form of racism and white supremacy,” West said, according to ABC News.
Is this a real campaign? It seems to be a real campaign in some sense of the word, but it has not proven to be an effective or organized one. West has missed the deadlines to get on the ballot in numerous states, and in several states where he met the deadline, his paperwork and signatures were either incomplete or potentially fraudulent.