A day after appearing for a radio interview on Chicago hip-hop station WGCI, Kanye West is back on his hometown airwaves, this time in an extended chat with Power 92’s DJ Pharris. The new interview covers some of the same territory as yesterday’s talk—Kanye spoke extensively about his bipolar disorder, and delivers a nearly identical quasi-apology for his infamous MAGA hat photo and remarks about slavery being a choice—but also goes into some new territory.
At one point, Pharris delicately explained to Kanye that his old friends in Chicago feel alienated, or pressured to defend him or explain his behavior, when he does things like endorse the president. “When stuff like that happens, guess who feels some of the effect of it? Me, GLC, Really Doe,” Pharris said. “Those people, they might not be with you right now, today, but here in Chicago, they will forever remain tied to you…So any time anything controversial comes with you, you know who get the heat? We do.”
Kanye responded by saying that he still likes Trump, but likes other candidates too, using an extremely on-the-nose metaphor about shopping to get the point across:
When people ask about the Trump thing, ‘Do you like him?,’ or something: I like Bernie, I like Hillary, I like Obama. I love everybody. I’m actually riding with everybody. For someone to say, ‘You can’t ride with both sides,’ that’s like: OK, I go to Michigan Avenue, but you can’t go to the Nike store and go to Ralph Lauren, you can’t go to Water Town. You only gotta go to one store. It’s like a modern idea, like gangbanging or something.
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Pharris asked Kanye if he’s still seriously considering a presidential run, to which he answered, “Yes. It 100 percent could happen. 2024.” “Yeah? You’re gonna try it,” Pharris said. Kanye: “If I decide to do it, it will be done. I’m not gonna try.”
A few minutes later, West delivered a soliloquy that could be illuminating about his governing style:
One thing I’ve learned from hanging around with Jay-Z and being married to my wife is you can’t fuck up the paper. That’s the problem with a lot of the radical leaders in the past, whether it’s Malcolm, or Ghandi, or Martin. There’s certain things where they go in and they’re so righteous, so liberal, that they’re fucking up the paper. If you fuck up the paper, you’re head gonna get knocked off. Period. I’m not going in, when I become president, to fuck up the paper. Because I tell you what: Trump ain’t fucking up the paper. Those jobs are up. Those taxes are being saved on.
“You should not be president unless you’ve ran a multi-billion dollar business,” he added. Whatever Kanye says about loving Hillary and Bernie, there was only one candidate in the 2016 race who met his criteria for running the country.
