SAN FRANCISCO — President Barack Obama didn’t endorse Kanye West for president in 2020, but he did offer a few pointers during the fundraiser they headlined Saturday morning.
West announced at August’s MTV Video Music Awards that he aspires to the White House, and the president alluded to that — though not to his own rocky history with the rapper — just after taking the stage for the Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Warfield Theater.
“A little bit later you’re going to hear from a guy who’s been talking about launching a political career,” he told the crowd of more than 1,300 contributors, aiming a jab at House Republicans’ recent leadership woes. “You may have heard about this: Kanye is thinking of running for Speaker of the House. It couldn’t get any stranger.”
“But in case Kanye is serious about this POTUS thing — or as he calls it, ‘Peezy’ — I have some advice for him,” Obama offered, playing on West’s “Yeezy” nickname.
First, you have to spend time with strange people who believe they’re on a reality TV show, “so you have to be cool with that,” the president said.
Second, he said, “saying you have a ‘Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'” — the title of West’s 2010 album — “is what’s called ‘being off message’ in politics,” and such things have ended more than a few political careers.
And third, Obama said, “Do you really think this country is going to elect a black guy from the south side of Chicago with a funny name to be president of the United States? That’s crazy.”
Yet the leader of the free world and Yeezy never actually shared the stage Saturday, because Obama left the building before the rapper’s performance. First, however, Obama gave a fairly standard stump speech covering his administration’s accomplishments — from job creation to the Affordable Care Act and more — while attacking GOP intransigence on issues like climate change and gun control as well as GOP negativism about the state of the nation.
“There’s almost no measure by which we’re not better than when I took office,” he said, which begs the question of why so many Republican candidates are “down on America… Why are they so grumpy?”
Listening to them, one might think that things were rosy back in 2008, when the economy was tanking, Osama bin Laden was still at large and so on, he said. “Those were the golden years, and then I came in and messed it up. I mean, you’ve got to give them credit for chutzpah,” he said. “The fact-checkers just can’t keep up.”
Obama was preceded on stage Saturday by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who introduced the NBA championship-winning Golden State Warriors. Point guard and MVP Stephen Curry, clutching the championship trophy at the podium, likened the teamwork and unity that powered his team to victory to that among Democrats at Saturday’s events.
Tickets for Saturday’s fundraiser cost $100 each for students, $250 for general admission, $1,000 for premium seating, $5,000 for a photo with the president and $10,000 to greet Obama in a small VIP “clutch.” Obama had spent the night at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill after a Friday night fundraiser that was closed to the press; after Saturday’s event, he flew to Los Angeles for more fundraisers.
“The latest swing through the Golden State proves once again that President Obama only cares about causing traffic jams for fundraising for the failed Democrat agenda,” Republican National Committee spokesman Ninio Fetalvo said. “But regardless of whether Democrats nominate Clinton or Biden, the American people have made it clear they want a change from the policies of the Obama era — an era both candidates would continue.”
Obama and West are an interesting pair. The rapper performed at one of the president’s inaugural balls back in 2009, but after West seized Taylor Swift’s microphone at that year’s Video Music Awards — the “imma let you finish” incident that lives on in memedom — Obama called him “a jackass.” Obama said the same thing again in 2012, though qualifying that West also is “smart, he’s very talented.”
West downplayed that in 2013 but his wife, Kim Kardashian, shot back in a GQ interview in 2014. “I don’t think it’s very appropriate for the president of the United States to be commenting really on pop culture,” she said. “I mean, calling people ‘jackass’? … I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion — even him.”
Then, in March at Oxford University, West claimed the president occasionally dials him up to chew the fat: “Obama calls the home phone, by the way.” Obama told Jimmy Kimmel days later that he has met West only twice and “I don’t think I’ve got his home number.” Yet West soon doubled down on his claim to TMZ: “I love Obama. He called our house before. He knows that. Don’t try to pit us against each other.”
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
