Kanye West has expressed an interest in running for president in 2020. But in the meantime, there’s one White House hopeful who West finds particularly dazzling.
In an interview with Vanity Fair published Thursday, the hip-hop mogul described his reaction after first listening to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who comes in fourth in the latest Washington Examiner presidential power rankings.
“As soon as I heard Carson speak, I tried for three weeks to get on the phone with him,” West told the pop culture magazine.
“I was like this is the most brilliant guy,” he continued.
The Grammy-award winning artist went on to equate the current presidential race to gladiatorial combat while condemning political infighting and partisan battles.
“I think all the people running right now have something that each of the others needs,” West said. “But the idea of this separation and this gladiator battle takes away from the main focus that the world needs help and the world needs all the people in a position of power or influence to come together.”
Despite admiring Carson’s intelligence, West has a history of supporting Democratic candidates. He endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for the White House in 2008 and was spotted at a star-studded fundraiser for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles recently.
Should Carson land the Republican nomination, however, he may not need celebrity endorsements to defeat the former secretary of state.
The soft-spoken Republican would win by 7 points in a Carson-Clinton general election matchup, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday. Carson also scored the highest “honesty” rating of any presidential hopeful, Democrat or Republican, in the same poll with 63 percent of respondents labeling him “honest and trustworthy.”
Meanwhile, nearly two times as many voters (63 percent) declared Clinton dishonest and untrustworthy as did those who still believe the former first lady is free of deceit (32 percent).
