Kanye West is officially in the race to become the next President of the USA
The rapper Kanye West has taken another step towards his dream of moving into the White House after making it onto the election ballot in at least one state.
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Kanye West will make it onto the US presidential ballot in pro-Republican Oklahoma after spending enough money in campaign activity to qualify for the election in November.
Amid confusion over whether the rap star will continue in his bid for the White House, West filled out both Federal Election Commission forms required to run for president and has officially made it onto the ballot in his first state.
The State Election Board in Oklahoma received a notarised document on Wednesday local time from West’s campaign declaring his candidacy for president as an independent.
The rapper, 43, filed a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), showing he’s spent or raised more than $A7,500 related to his campaign.
The second set of paperwork filed gives him official candidacy status.
West has said that if he became President, he planned to model his White House on the fictional land of Wakanda from the Black Panther movie.
The party is listed as “BDY,” which in an interview with Forbes magazine last week, West said it stood for Birthday Party “because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.”
West listed his home as Cody, Wyoming, where he and wife Kim Kardashian own a huge property worth $A20million.
On Wednesday, West filed the first form required by the FEC — a Statement of Organisation — declaring that the Kanye 2020 committee will serve as the “Principal Campaign Committee” with West as its candidate.
The filings come on the heels of reports that West was dropping out of the race just 10 days after making the surprise announcement on Twitter on July 4.
According to reports, West hired a campaign staff who tried to get him on the ballot as a third-party candidate in the key background state.
West is said to be serious about running, as he hired election strategist Steve Kramer, and had a team of 180 people working on the ground in Florida.
He started to get his name on the ballot last week as a third-party candidate to mount a challenge to Mr Trump and his presumptive Democratic rival, Biden.
“We had overwhelming support to get him on the ballot,” Mr Kramer told New York Magazine. “Whether anybody is going to vote for him or not is up to them.”
But when asked by the magazine on Wednesday about West’s presidential bid Mr Kramer said, “He’s out.”
“I’ll let you know what I know once I get all our stuff cancelled. We had over 180 people out there today.”
But as of Wednesday, West filed the necessary paperwork and paid the $A50,000 filing to appear on Oklahoma’s ballot.
West told Forbes that he, who once praised Mr Trump and said the two share “dragon energy,” was “taking the red hat off” — a reference to Mr Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” hat.
West, who said that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, said he planned to model his White House on the fictional land in Black Panther if he won the presidency, adding: “Let’s get back to Wakanda.”
Forbes said they spoke to West during “four rambling hours of interviews.”
West often referred to himself in the third person and claimed he was “one of the most powerful humans,” but said there were “a lot of alien level superpowers.”
DOCUMENT PROVES KANYE STILL WANTS THE WHITE HOUSE
Kanye West is reportedly still in the presidential race.
The rap superstar filed with the Federal Election Commission, according to a report from TMZ on Wednesday (local time).
West filed Form 1 – the Statement of Organisation – that says the Kanye 2020 committee will act as the “Principal Campaign Committee,” the report said, according to the New York Post.
The paperwork listed the party as “the Birthday Party,” the banner he said he would run under when he initially announced his intention earlier this month.
It appears that @KanyeWest has now officially registered to run for President, according to Federal Election Commission documents.https://t.co/KSBicqkJBm pic.twitter.com/UbpYNCD432
— Photos Of KimYe (@PhotosOfKanye) July 15, 2020
The report noted that he had yet to file Form 2 – Statement of Candidacy – that confirms that he’s raised or spent more than US$5000 ($A7200) in campaign activities, which triggers his candidacy status under federal campaign laws.
Earlier, it was reported that West has dropped out of the 2020 US presidential bid, according to reports.
The 43-year-old sneaker billionaire’s campaign was reportedly suspended less than two weeks after he shocked America by declaring his decision to run for president in November.
According to a report from New York magazine, a “get-out-the-vote specialist” named Steve Kramer claimed West is already “out” after the rapper hired both “paid and volunteer” staff to help him secure signatures in Florida and South Carolina to get him on the ballot.
According to Fox News, Kramer claimed West’s team was “working over weekend there, formalising the FEC and other things that they’ve got to do when you have a lot of corporate lawyers involved.”
The specialist claimed there was “overwhelming support” to get West on the ballot.
A separate source, who remained anonymous, claimed to the outlet that they were hired for US$5000 ($A7200) to help West gather signatures in Florida to meet the state’s July 15 ballot deadline. The outlet claimed he needed “132,781 valid signatures from Florida voters in less than a week.”
New York writer Ben Jacobs said that he reached out to West’s publicist for confirmation on his recent efforts, when the musician’s team suddenly “went dark.”
“As I waited for a response, I followed up with Kramer who told me, ‘He’s out,’” Mr Jacobs said.
We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States 🇺🇸! #2020VISION
— ye (@kanyewest) July 5, 2020
Mr Kramer told the outlet that staff were “disappointed” that West has allegedly suspended his efforts. He also claimed to have “nothing good or bad to say about Kanye.”
“Everyone has their personal decision about why they make decisions. Running for president has to be one of the hardest things for someone to actually contemplate at that level,” Mr Kramer said.
WEST’S BIZARRE BID FOR PRESIDENT
West announced his bid for president during a July 4 tweet. The following week Forbes magazine published an interview with the rapper where he said that he would be “taking the red hat off” switching his support from US President Donald Trump and starting his own party for the November US election.
During the interview, West also said that if Mr Trump wasn’t running, he would have run as a Republican, adding that, “I will run as an independent if Trump is there.”
The rapper also revealed his political party would have been called the Birthday Party, “because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.”
The billionaire sneaker mogul told the magazine he would run on an anti-abortion, anti-vaccine policy platform, naming his top two advisers as wife, Kim Kardashian, and billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, who West said he “proposed to be the head of our space program”.
But West, who conceded that he had never voted before, also missed the deadline to appear on the ballot in a number of US states, but maintained that he could be added because of the coronavirus.
He told the magazine he was “going to speak with Jared Kushner, the White House, with Biden” to make his bid happen.
But the rapper-turned-mogul did not hold back on his thoughts on Mr Biden’s presidential bid.
“Obama’s special. Trump’s special. We say Kanye West is special. America needs special people that lead. Bill Clinton? Special. Joe Biden’s not special.”
West had previously suggested he would run in 2024 and said whether he won the 2020 election or the following one, it would be by “God’s appointment”.
West has been an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump, even meeting him in the Oval Office, donning a red MAGA hat.
“One of the main reasons I wore the red hat [was] as a protest to the segregation of votes in the black community,” West said. “Other than the fact that I like Trump hotels and the saxophones in the lobby.”
West did not say specifically why he had stopped supporting Mr Trump.
“It looks like one big mess to me,” he said. “I don’t like that I caught wind that he hid in the bunker.”
But he did say, “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.”
West, however, slammed the Democratic party.
“That is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all Black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote.
“All of that information is being charged up on social media platforms by Democrats. And Democrats used to tell me, the same Democrats have threatened me …. The reason why this is the first day I registered to vote is because I was scared. I was told that if I voted on Trump my music career would be over. I was threatened into being in one party.
“I was threatened as a black man into the Democratic party. And that’s what the Democrats are doing, emotionally, to my people. Threatening them to the point where this white man can tell a black man if you don’t vote for me, you’re not black,” he said.
West also revealed that he may have contracted coronavirus in February.
“Chills, shaking in the bed, taking hot showers, looking at videos telling me what I’m supposed to do to get over it.”
But he said he remained cautious over any possible COVID-19 vaccines.
“It’s so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralysed … So when they say the way we’re going to fix COVID is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious. That’s the mark of the beast.
“They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things to make it where we can’t cross the gates of heaven.”
West said that coronavirus was “all about God. We need to stop doing things that make God mad.”
Answering suggestions that his presidential bid is all about selling more copies of his new album, God’s Country, West said, “I give my album away for free.”
FAMILY ‘CONCERNED’ FOR ‘STRUGGLING’ KANYE
More recently, the star’s family was said to be concerned that he is in the middle of a “serious bipolar episode” which has “impacted his decision-making” and left his family “very concerned”, it has been claimed.
Their concern was reportedly heightened after West announced he was running for US president, later giving an interview in which he expressed controversial views about vaccinations.
According to TMZ, sources close to West say he is in the midst of a manic episode caused by bipolar disorder – a condition which the musician has spoken openly about in the past.
The report says the father-of-four usually has a serious bout “once a year”, and claims this is what has prompted his unconventional statements in the past week.
His recent behaviour has left his family “worried” but they remain confident his condition will stabilise as it has in the past, the report claims.
In 2016, Kanye was hospitalised after a “psychiatric emergency” which forced him to cancel 21 concert dates.
Last year, the rapper told US TV host David Letterman about his diagnosis and the paranoia he feels during a serious episode.
“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything,” he said.
“Everyone – this is my experience, other people have different experiences – everyone now is an actor.
“Everything’s a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you’re being recorded. You feel all these things.”
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He also described being handcuffed to a bed, drugged and being separated from his family during his time in hospital.
Speaking about the risks involved in not taking his medication, he said: “If you don’t take medication every day to keep you at a certain state, you have a potential to ramp up and it can take you to a point where you can even end up in the hospital.”
Kanye told Letterman that he had only been diagnosed two years prior.
In April last year, the musician’s wife Kim Kardashian admitted her husband won’t take his medication – but says she knows how to handle his “episodes”.
She told Vogue: “I think we’re in a pretty good place with it now.
“It is an emotional process, for sure. Right now everything is really calm. But we can definitely feel episodes coming, and we know how to handle them.
“For him, being on medication is not really an option, because it just changes who he is.
“Travelling a lot does set it off, so he doesn’t travel as much as he used to.”
Originally published as Kanye West is officially in the race to become the next President of the USA