Kanye West eyes Candace Owens as his vice president: “She should be good”

Kanye West has revealed that he would like Candace Owens to be his vice presidential running mate in 2024, as he prepares to make another bid for the White House.

West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, stated in an interview with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes on Saturday that he believes conservative commentator Owens “should be good” for the high-profile role.

However, West claimed that Ben Shapiro could prove to be something of a stumbling block in the plan, accusing the right-wing host and columnist of being “in control” of Owens’ voice. Shapiro is editor emeritus at The Daily Wire, home to Owens’ talk show, among other politically-focused projects.

When asked by McInnes on Saturday about who he would like to run as his vice president, West said: “I was thinking about Candace Owens, I think she should be good. But I have a major problem with Ben Shapiro. And my problem is, Ben Shapiro is in control of Candace Owens’ voice.”

“Sometimes I feel that you have people who go up and they just complain about things, right, and they become controlled right and controlled left,” West continued. “That’s another thing that the media does with politics, is they make it noisy and they make it messy. We need to make these things clear and more simplified.”

“So I’m open to ideas,” added West, who ran for president in 2020. “I haven’t defined that I’m running for office yet, because that’s what I’m being advised to do.”

West and Owens became friends in recent years, with both sharing support for former President Donald Trump and aligning on such issues as abortion. In October, West and Owens sparked headlines when they sported shirts emblazoned with the words “White Lives Matter.”

Shapiro has publicly criticized West amid the star’s string of antisemitic comments in interviews over the past few weeks, as well as West’s meeting with Trump and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last month.

Elsewhere in his interview with far-right political commentator McInnes, West was questioned on his position regarding some of the hot-button topics that have ignited fierce political debate over the years.

When asked if he would make abortion illegal, West, who sported a full face mask, simply responded, “Yes.”

As for his views on immigration and whether he would “fortify the [border] wall,” the musician said: “I know you like the idea of fortifying the wall. I need to discuss how we work with South America more closely. How we as one America bring back our industry. So I don’t have a clear answer immediately on that.”

Regarding same-sex marriage, West stated: “You know, the thing about that, 95 percent of gay people don’t get married anyway. So it’s a very liberal thing that is put up to like cause these headlines. All my policies are gonna follow the Bible.”

West has been in a constant cycle of controversy over the past two months, with his controversial interviews culminating in his praise of Adolf Hitler and Nazis during an appearance on Alex Jones’s Infowars last week.

The rapper continued to do so in his interview with McInnes on Saturday, before saying that only those who “believe in Jesus Christ” should be permitted to hold positions of power in the United States.

“Anyone that doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ should not be in control or [have] any influence to anything that America produces, be it media, technology, politics, farming, medicine, prisons,” West said. “If you do not believe in Christ and you’re not following Christ in the decisions that you make you should have no influence on that.”

Insisting that his comments on Hitler are having a positive impact on his campaign, West, who has previously spoken about his bipolar diagnosis, insisted that his actions are not the result of having any mental health issues, as Shapiro has suggested.

“How many times do I have to do something so miraculous for people to see that it’s brilliant and it’s not mental health?” West asked. “Like me wearing a mask gives me this ability to not have to worry about showing my face so I can think about what I’m saying, so I can channel.”

West’s campaign is currently in something of a transitionary period after it was announced last week that Milo Yiannopoulos is no longer on the team. Discussing the news on Twitter on Sunday, Owens called Yiannopoulos “vindictive.”

Ben Kew, editor-at-large at bilingual conservative platform El American, reacted to the news of Yiannopoulos’ departure from West’s campaign team on Sunday by tweeting: “I think it is fair to say that Milo Yiannopoulos’s political consultancy services left quite a lot to be desired.”

Responding to the post, Owens wrote: “Milo is a vindictive psychopath. Utterly void of conscience and lies without qualm.”

While Owens offered no further explanation for her assertion on Twitter, the conservative commentator shared a thread on the platform on November 25, stating that she did not introduce West to Yiannopoulos or Fuentes.

“I have never in my life been in contact with Milo [Yiannopoulos] (or Nick Fuentes),” she said. “That is not a personal shot at either of them—That is simply the truth. I met Milo twice: both times at the David Horowitz freedom center where we were both invited as speakers years ago.”

“I was with Dave Rubin, he can attest to that fact,” the Candace host continued. “Milo was nice to me both times. That is the extent of my relationship with Milo. I met him twice years ago at a conference.”

“I did not introduce Ye to Milo,” she added. “I simply could not have introduced Ye to Milo—I have never had any contact with him. Again, not a personal shot at anyone, just simply stating the truth. I was in London when they met and learned at the same time as everyone else.”

Elsewhere in her Twitter thread, Owens also rejected purported claims that she “somehow connected Ye, Milo, and Nick Fuentes to take down Trump.”

Newsweek reached out to Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos for comment.