Academy Award winning actor Matthew McConaughey and 24-time Grammy winner Kanye West both spoke about their White House aspirations for future elections.
The “Dallas Buyer’s Club” star told a crowd at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco that he’d have to be compelled run, but wouldn’t seek it out for himself, according to SFGate.
“If that happened to me I would be pulled into it,” McConaughey said this week. “If I’m living right, which I’m trying to, we get pulled into things … it’s inevitable. I didn’t choose it, it chose me.”
The “Interstellar” lead didn’t indicate if a 2024 run was in the cards, when Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff asked about the upcoming election.
I’ll consider it in the future, I’d be arrogant not to, absolutely I would consider it,” McConaughey remarked. “If I got into any form of politics I’d be remiss not to also go in as an artist and a storyteller; help put a narrative together. You’re the CEO of a state and a nation, a lot of compartmentalization and choices to be made. They scare me but I’m not afraid of ’em.”
The “Dazed and Confused” star, who has never revealed which political party he belongs to, believes that the nation’s values are much more centric than mainstream media is reporting.
“There’s definitely a greater divide now than there has been,” he said. “One thing is we have to admit that part of that divide is the Kool-Aid we’re being sold. The divide is not as thick as we’re being sold; most of us are much more near the middle than we’re being told.”
McConaughey teased a Texas gubernatorial run in the upcoming election, and polled ahead of current Gov. Greg Abbott by 12 points in April. He indicated that he was seriously considering entering the race in November and was studying up on the role.
“There’s great sacrifice that comes with a decision,” McConaughey concluded. “That’s what I’ve been doing, and there’s no tease to it. There’s me doing my diligence, and I will let you know shortly.”
Days later, he announced that running for the state’s highest office was an “inspiring and humbling path to ponder,” but “a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment,” in a Twitter video.
Iconic rapper Kanye West also indicated that a Presidential bid was on the horizon this week, when he told Good Morning America that he “absolutely” has ambition to run, but like McConaughey, declined to reveal if it would be in 2024.
West ran in 2020 as a representative of his self-created Birthday party, but conceded on Nov. 4. He announced his withdrawal with a tweet captioned: “Kanye 2024.”
In the same interview, West discussed his decision to terminate his 10-year partnership with the Gap last week, and launch of his own brand YZY.
“It was all kind of a disregard for the voice of something that I co-created. I co-created the product at Adidas. I co-created the product at Gap,” he commented.
“That means that I was there for some specific agenda, not for Yeezy Gap to be everything that it could be, or this dream that I had about what the Gap could be,” West continued. “It’s time for me to make my own thing.”
Last week he told CNBC that the Gap’s ties to China were a factor in the dissolution of his relationship with the retailer.
“There’s a lot of stuff where they have a lot of commitments to China. We wanted to do localized manufacturing which is completely possible with some of the factories that I’m buying here in California,” he explained. “We can actually bring industry back to America.”
“I feel like in a lot of ways Europe has been the head of prestige with the luxury brands and luxury vehicles, and China has been ahead of manufacturing, but America, we invented rock’n’roll, we are the youngest startup ever, America itself,” West concluded.