Rapper Kanye West has come out in support of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, drawing boos and whistles from fans.
West told the audience at a concert in San Jose, California on Thursday (Nov 18) night that he didn’t vote in the Nov 8 US presidential elections “but if I would have voted, I would have voted for Trump.”
The rapper remained quiet during the acrimonious 2016 election campaign, while Hollywood stars and other music heavy hitters like Beyonce, Katy Perry and Bruce Springsteen supported Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“I hate the fact that because I’m a celebrity, everybody told me not to say that I loved the debates,” West said, in videos of remarks posted by concertgoers on Twitter and YouTube.
“I loved his (Trump’s) approach,” added West, who last year declared he was considering running for US president himself in 2020.
Many in the crowd jeered, and some in the audience wrote that people were throwing objects at the Gold Digger singer.
West shouted “build that wall” during the concert in an apparent reference to Trump’s pledge to build a wall on the US- Mexico border and step up immigration enforcement against the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Many US celebrities are dismayed and shocked at Trump’s election. But former Daily Show television host Jon Stewart this week called out left-wingers as hypocrites for portraying Trump voters as racists even as they purport to reject stereotypes.
“I thought Donald Trump disqualified himself at numerous points,” the liberal-leaning Stewart said in a CBS television interview on Thursday. “But there is now this idea that anyone who voted for him has to be defined by the worst of his rhetoric.”
West, who is married to TV reality star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian, suggested he still had presidential ambitions.
“I don’t say 2020 out of disrespect to our president at all… I’m just saying I’ve got some ideas about the way we should connect our ideas,” West told concertgoers.
Celebrity socialite Paris Hilton said in an Australian TV interview this week that she also voted for Trump, describing him as an old family friend.
