White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, the US president's son in law, said on Thursday that he previously met with rapper Kanye West, confirming earlier media reports. Kushner suggested that the meeting was a "general discussion more about policy", but did not go into detail about what was discussed.
"Kanye’s been a friend of mine for — I’ve known him for about 10 years", Trump's son in law said during a White House press briefing. "We both happened to be in Colorado, and we got together and we had a great discussion about a lot of things".
Kushner also praised "great ideas for what he [Kanye West] would like to see happen in the country", taking note that some of those ideas are championed by Trump as well.
According to West's tweets, he and Kushner met to discuss the book "PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America", written by Dr. Claud Anderson in 2001.
West, who repeatedly voiced his support for Trump and met with him at the White House, later asserted that he "took his red hat off", in reference to the president's ubiquitous branding campaign.
The musician's presidential bid remains enigmatic, as he has only held one campaign event and has missed deadlines to register for the ballots. When asked in a Forbes interview whether he might steal some votes from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, West refused to deny it, saying "I'm not going to argue with you" and "I'm not denying it", adding: "Jesus is King".
According to reports by TMZ, West has accused the Democrats of "spying" on his campaign, claiming that the political party hired a private investigator as part of what the rapper characterized as an "organised effort of harassment and intimidation" against his presidential bid.
A rally West held in South Carolina raised eyebrows and caused concern for his mental health after he broke into tears while saying that he "almost killed" his daughter North by suggesting an abortion to his wife, Kim Kardashian West, who later elaborated on the rapper's bipolar disorder. Reports emerged that she was about to divorce him over his bizarre presidential bid.
In Wednesday's Politico-Morning Consult poll, West gathered 2 percent support, with 2 percent of the black vote and 4 percent of the Hispanic vote.