Ye, the musician previously known as Kanye West, has said that he’s intending to run for president in 2024.
In a video posted to the X17 YouTube Channel on Sunday, Ye appeared with far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in which Ye appeared to refer to him as his campaign manager.
Ye’s 2020 campaign became known for its unpredictability amid claims that he could win over some Black voters who may have voted for President Joe Biden, Reuters noted at the time.
While he conceded that he lost in 2020, he immediately appeared to set up expectations for another run, posting a picture showing himself in front of an election map with the words “WELP Kanye 2024”.
The news comes after the restoration of his Twitter account following the company being taken over by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Ye was banned from Twitter after making heavily criticised anti-Semitic statements.
“This is Milo right here, working on the campaign,” Ye can be heard saying in the footage, according to the New York Post.
“Is that an announcement?” one of them asks.
“I guess it is,” Mr Yiannopoulos said. “Thanks, I accept.”
Mr Yiannopoulos was accused of advocating for paedophilia after saying that sexual contact between 13-year-old boys and adult men can be “perfectly consensual”.
He then went on to serve as an intern in the office of far-right Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
“So you are running?” the cameraman asks the men.
“Yes,” Ye replies. “It’s simple ’cause ain’t nobody can tell me, you know, ‘you should say this, you shouldn’t say that,’ you know? It’s just we’re moving towards the future.”
Twitter users were quick to react to the 2024 campaign news.
“Kanye West announced that he’s running for president in 2024. Can it get any crazier?” Paul van der Meer wrote.
“Kanye West meeting with misogynistic antisemitic white nationalist Christian fascist Nick Fuentes to plot running for president in 2024 seems like a solid career move,” Right Wing Watch tweeted.
“Kanye West just said he’ll run for president in 2024. A bit of a problem for Trump. They’ll compete over the same bigots and morons,” the account Republicans against Trumpism added. “He said that Milo Yiannopoulos, a notorious white supremacist, is working on his campaign. Just like with Trump, the fact that so many white supremacist bigots love Kanye West tells you everything you need to know.”
“Kanye West running for President in 2024 with Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos as advisors wasn’t on my bingo card,” one Twitter user said.
“Kanye working with literal Nazis now,” Eli Valley wrote.
“Kanye’s song ‘Black Skinhead’ hits a lot different these days,” one account holder said.
“Kanye West is responding to criticism by leaning farther into legitimizing actual neo-Nazis, it seems. Nick Fuentes is a Holocaust denier, and now he’s meeting with Kanye,” another person said.
“I have zero respect for this guy anymore. None. I had the benefit of the doubt that maybe he just needed help, but I can’t excuse anyone who hangs out with a literal Nazi Holocaust denier,” one Twitter user added.
