kanye's elevator speech

I’ll bet you didn’t know that Kanye Omari West...

American rap genius, producer, entrepreneur, fashion designer and global superstar

...is an emergency management fanboy.

Yep, believe it or not, he's a total buff. He tells friends his dream is to be air-dropped into a press conference in the disaster zone.

So after the 2016 election he visited the President-elect in Trump tower, lobbying for the position of FEMA Administrator. The transcript of that conversation was leaked and is reprinted below (without permission):

“Congratulations DT...

I don’t mean to be a downer during this happy time, as you are getting ready for the inauguration and the parade and the balls. But before you take the oath of office, I need to remind you of something.

Always remember that, as President, you can screw a lot of stuff up, but you can't screw up a major disaster...

...not if you want to be re-elected.

I came all the way over here because I can help you with that.

Right now, you’re probably thinking, ‘No, Kanye, I’m good. I didn’t get to be where I am by running away from crises.

Besides, as the Chief Executive, more than 2 million people work for me, not including the active duty men and women in uniform.

I have already talked to FEMA and they tell me they're ready. They have all of their plans and things ready to go and so when the disaster comes, my government will leap into action.

And I’ll just take the reins and do my crisis leader thing.’

"Well, Mr President…, said Kanye, I’ve got some bad news for you.

Everything you have been told about your government and disasters is just flat wrong. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

The government you’re getting ready to take over is a slow-moving creature of habit, built for the 9 to 5, for order and comfort and certainty. It’s completely unsuited to the chaos of the disaster zone.

And the instant you walk into the Oval Office that government, and you, will be on a collision course with a moment of truth.

When it comes that moment will be a very dark moment indeed.

It will hit you as you sit in your situation room, watching the catastrophe unfold on television, somewhere in this great nation; probably a major city, like New York, or Houston. Or maybe right here in DC.

It will hit you as you watch FEMA and your crisis team “work the job”...

And you get nothing from them...

No answers, no insight...

Nothing but a “why-does-it-seem-like-nobody-knows-what-they-are-doing?” feeling.

It will hit you as your anxiety turns to real fear and then, ultimately, to insight.

That flash of insight will consist of two painful realities:

The first is that the situation is bad, far worse than anyone has been telling you. The second is that you and your government have absolutely no control over it.

This will be because those agencies that you thought owned the problem for you actually don’t. And because they never expected to own the problem, they have no ability to solve it

Those agencies, your agencies, will be worthless to you in that moment. And that will leave you helpless.

The good news is that this is where I come in.

As your FEMA Administrator, I will work to make sure you never feel the pain of that moment.

Because I will start now, pulling people out of all of your agencies, out of their orderly and comfy org charts and into my incident organization. My incident organization will be your great machine. A great incident management machine of government, that I will build and battle-harden before the job.

I will remove the plausible deniability from the minds of those 2 million people and ready them to do battle with the crisis.

I will keep watch 24/7/365 and size up every threat.

So when I call you, your great machine will already be activated and I will be getting everybody and everything all in your job.

In that moment, I will be able to tell you not only all of the things we are already doing, but the things we are not yet doing and when we are going to do these things.

You will be the boss, because I will put you in the driver's seat.

But I will own the disaster. So you don’t have to....”

Here is where the transcript ends. But later that day, the President-elect tweeted “Kanye loves me”

Kelly R McKinney is the Senior Director of Emergency Management + Enterprise Resilience for NYU Langone Health. He is the former Deputy Commissioner for Preparedness at the New York City Office of Emergency Management and Chief Disaster Officer at the American Red Cross in Greater New York. He is the author of Moment of Truth: The Nature of Catastrophes and How to Prepare for Them that was released last July by Post Hill Press