Donald Trump Says Kanye West Could Run for President

Donald Trump says that he thinks Kanye West could run for President of the United States, calling the rapper a “smart cookie.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Trump made the statement when the two men met on Thursday in the Oval Office.

“He can speak for me any time he wants,” Trump said of the rapper who has been fervently defending him in the press. “He’s a smart cookie. He gets it.”

During the meeting, West reportedly went on an extensive rant that ended with him walking behind Trump’s desk and giving him a hug.

“I tell you what that was pretty impressive,” Trump said of West’s diatribe. “That was quite something.”

West also wore his infamous Make America Great Again hat and reportedly told Trump that “liberals” — like the ones who work for SNL — should respect the president more. “They tried to scare me to not wear this hat,” he claimed. “But, this hat gives me power in some way.”

West made headlines recently when he appeared on SNL and went on a pro-Trump rant after the cameras stopped rolling. The following day he posted a photo of himself on Twitter wearing the MAGA hat and asserting that the 13th amendment of the Constitution should be overturned.

“This represents good and America becoming whole again. We will no longer outsource to other countries. We build factories here in America and create jobs. We will provide jobs for all who are free from prisons as we abolish the 13th amendment,” West wrote in the since-deleted post. “Message sent with love.”

A source close to the rapper eventually surfaced, saying that there was reason to believe that his erratic behavior was due to the upcoming anniversary of West’s mother’s death.

“If you remember, it was a year ago that this happened … almost exactly a year ago,” the source said, recalling West’s similarly bizarre behavior in 2017. “It happens every fall as we get close to the anniversary of his mom’s death.”

“He’s up in the middle of the night texting, calling, messaging everyone and he doesn’t make any sense,” the source added. “He’s rambling. His ideas aren’t always completely bad, but then he can’t communicate them and it gets confused in his own mind. He’s such a confused guy.”

According to the source, West apparently believes that he is warring against “dark spiritual forces” that are “evil,” but that West believes his is “good.”

“‘Evil’ can change depending on what we’re talking about. If he has writer’s block, it’s evil. If someone disagrees with him, they’re evil,” the source explained. “We’re always telling him “No, that’s not evil. That’s just life.’”

Regarding Trump’s presidential comment about West, the rapper had previously suggested that he may run for president, but there is no new information to suggest he actually is.

Photo credit: SEBASTIAN SMITH/AFP/Getty Images