On Jan. 20, 2025, an X user posted (archived) an image that appeared to document an online interaction between rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Donald Trump, whose inauguration as the 47th president of the United States was scheduled to take place the same day.
The purported screengrab showed Trump saying "Thank you Kanye, very cool!" in an X post in response to Ye sharing a childlike, stick-figure drawing of two people labeled "Kanye" and "Trump." Text reading "hi donald I drew u a picture of me and u idk its kinda dumb but i thought youd like it idk" accompanied the drawing.
The same image also circulated in the weeks leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, when the image (archived) appeared in numerous (archived) posts on X (archived) and on Reddit (archived).
(Imgur)
Some people appeared to believe the screenshot was an authentic interaction between Trump and Ye. For example, one Reddit user, who posted (archived) the image to the r/Kanye subreddit on Nov. 5, 2024, wrote: "Politics aside, but this is actually so wholesome." In October 2024, a different Reddit user posted (archived) the same picture to the r/Trump subreddit, writing: "Remember the best souport [sic] the best."
However, the image was digitally manipulated and not entirely authentic. On April 25, 2018, Trump did post "Thank you Kanye, very cool!" in response to a post from Ye — but the rapper's original post did not consist of a stick-figure drawing. Rather, Ye's real post included the following text explaining the rapper's support for Trump:
You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.
Trump's reaction to Ye's post was still visible on X, as of this writing, but Ye's original post was not — a result of the rapper deactivating his account in 2024. The full, original exchange, however, was preserved on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and can be seen below.
(Wayback Machine)
A TinEye reverse-image search of the edited image revealed that it was posted (archived) to image-hosting site Imgur on April 25, 2018, the same day the authentic exchange between Trump and Ye took place — a factor that likely contributed to the confusion over which version was genuine.
Snopes has reached out to the Imgur user who appeared to have first posted the edited version to ask whether they created it. We will update this story if and when they respond.
As Know Your Meme, a website that documents internet phenomena, noted, internet users have created various memes based on the original exchange since 2018.
In summary, Trump's "Thank you Kanye, very cool!" message was an authentic response to an April 2018 post by Ye. However, the rapper's original post did not include the stick-figure drawing. Instead, it consisted of several sentences of text explaining the rapper's support for Trump. Therefore, we have rated this image, and this claim, as fake.
We have previously investigated numerous claims related to Ye, including the rumor that a photograph authentically showed the rapper as a young man wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: "SAY NO TO NAZIS' NEW AMERICA."