Rapper Coolio and porn star Cherie DeVille plan 2020 White House run

President Trump may have some colorful competition for the White House in 2020.

On Tuesday, porn star Cherie DeVille and Grammy Award-winning “Gangsta’s Paradise” rapper Coolio announced their bid to become, respectively, president and vice president.

The online announcement was made on a website called — what else? — PornStarforPresident.com. The campaign’s possibly tongue-in-cheek slogan is: “Make America F------ Awesome Again!” Its healthcare program is called “Cooliocare” and its proposed Secretary of Foreign Relations is Khloe Terae, a Canadian-born “international model.”

What are the qualifications of the 39-year-old DeVille to run for higher office? Besides, that is, her pre-movie career as a physical therapist?

Her campaign website offers a partial answer.

“Boasting an impressive educational background that includes a doctorate, America will have the chance to elect a woman who has never let anything stop her, thriving in a male dominated industry to reach the very top.”

In any other year, this might sound like a late (or early) April Fool’s prank. But now, who knows?

Granted, DeVille and Coolio’s online campaign announcement and “press conference” Tuesday looked a lot like a “Saturday Night Live” skit that never made it past the early planning stages.

And, granted, DeVille and Coolio haven’t actually filed the necessary paperwork to run for office yet. But why quibble over technicalities?

“I’m adult film star Cherie DeVille, and I’m your next president of the United States,” DeVille told Los Angeles TV station KESQ Tuesday, adding: “If we are pulling away from electing only politicians for our higher offices, I think as a small celebrity in my own right I would be a good choice for the American people and for the world at large.”

Coolio, 54, agreed, adding: “We need normal, regular, everyday people in office.”

Having never seen any of DeVille’s movies — which, according to the Internet Movie Data Base website include “My Step-Mom Seduced Me” and “Lesbian House Hunters Part 10” — it’s difficult to gauge her acting skills. But she managed to mostly keep a straight face when talking to KESQ and at her online “press conference.”

At one point in the “press conference,” an unseen male reporter asks Coolio a question likely shared by others: Is this a joke?

“You can tell by our answers to your questions that it’s serious,” replies Coolio (real name: Artis Leon Ivey Jr.). “We’re making it fun, no doubt, (but) at the core of what we’re doing this is absolutely real.”

In a Wednesday article in The Hill, the Washington, D.C., newspaper that covers Congress, DeVille admitted she had more than one goal in mind in announcing her White House bid.

“I just want to challenge the public opinion that a sex worker, just because they’re a sex worker, couldn’t be in public office,” she said, stressing that she has the “goals and hopes and dreams of the American people in mind — not my own narcissistic, personal plan.”

No one asked DeVille or Coolio if they have a campaign theme song in mind. But Coolio’s 2006 album cut, “Make Money,” might be more appropriate than his 1994 breakthrough hit, “Fantastic Voyage.”

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga