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Rumors that Kanye West’s presidential campaign had ended were proven false when West announced that he was holding his first presidential campaign rally on Sunday, July 19. The rally started at 5 p.m. Eastern. You can watch a live stream video below.
West is now on the Oklahoma ballot and he announced his first rally this weekend. It’s for “registered guests” only, according to his announcement. The rally is at the Exquis Event Center in North Charleston, Politico reported. People attending are required to wear masks and social distance. They also had to sign a liability release form for possible exposure to COVID-19. President Donald Trump’s rally required a similar release form.
You can watch the rally below. At one point, audio stopped working for the video below, but a video right below it had audio the entire time.
Live 5 News is also covering the rally live on Facebook in the video below.
At one point during the rally, West became very emotional as he talked about the topic of abortion and how his dad had encouraged his mother to abort him, and he had almost wanted his daughter North to be aborted too. While crying, West said to the crowd: “I almost killed my daughter!” Someone shouted back to him: “We love you Kanye!”
West later said he didn’t want to make abortion illegal, but he did want to encourage people to choose “Plan B” over “Plan A.” You can watch a video of that moment in Heavy’s story here.
He First Announced His Campaign on July 4
West first announced his campaign on July 4, 2020, and it wasn’t clear if he was following through with it. Now his website, kanye2020.country, is asking people to sign a petition to get him on the South Carolina ballot. A source close to West’s campaign told Politico that he’s registered in two states so far and doesn’t have a logo for his campaign yet.
Kanye West took to Twitter to tell the world that he wanted to run for President. He made the announcement on the Fourth of July, writing: “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION.”
Elon Musk responded 10 minutes later, saying: “You have my full support!”
This wasn’t the first time that West talked about running for President. In November, he said he planned to run for President in 2024, USA Today reported. He made the statement during Fast Company’s Innovation Festival. He said: “When I run for president in 2024, we would’ve created so many jobs that I’m not going to run, I’m going to walk.”
However, West had also talked about supporting President Donald Trump. In 2018 he wore a MAGA hat when he visited Trump at the White House. In January he tweeted: “Trump all day.” He also talked to WSJ Magazine in April and said “I’m a black guy with a red (MAGA) hat, can you imagine?” But he also said he wasn’t registered to vote.
West recently said he was no longer supporting Trump.
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