Kanye West: Ye clashes with Piers Morgan in new interview, admits antisemitic comments caused ‘hurt’

Rapper once supported family at marches and with donation. Now he’s citing a documentary from Candace Owens as proof that the police didn’t actually kill George Floyd. Josh Marcus has the story for The Independent.

Kanye West has now claimed that he “doesn’t believe” in the term antisemitism.

In the past week, the 45-year-old rapper has been widely condemned for making a number of controversial comments on social media and in interviews.

On Monday, during an interview with News Nation’s Chris Cuomo, Ye addressed his plan to purchase right-wing social media network Parler.

When Cuomo asked Ye whether the antisemitic comments that he made violated Parler’s community guidelines, the Donda rapper responded: “I don’t like the term ‘antisemitic’.”

“It’s been a term that’s allowed people, specifically in my industry, to get away with murder – sometimes literally – and get away with robbing and doing bad [to] people.”

Read Peony Hirwani’s report to see how Cuomo responded to Ye’s latest remarks.

Donald Trump has defended Kanye West amid the rapper’s deepening antisemitism controversy, insisting that the rapper has always “been great to me.”

Mr Trump, whose daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and grandchildren are all Jewish, was asked by Salem News’s Larry O’Connor how he felt about West’s recent attacks.

The NWA rapper took to Twitter after West brought up his name during the Drunk Champs podcast, which has now been taken down.

“I hate that my name was dragged into this Drunk Champs bulls**t. I don’t know what Ye meant by his statements, you’re gonna have to ask him. I didn’t put the batteries in his back. Please leave my name out of all the antisemitic talk. I’m not antisemitic and never have been.”

Earlier this month, Kanye West took issue with a figure he’d previously professed his love for in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson: Jared Kushner.

Throughout the explosive primetime sitdown between the pair, West addressed a number of topics, including his pro-life stance, his decision to don a red MAGA cap, labelled the body positive moment “demonic” and admonished the fashion industry for encouraging his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, to “stick her a** out” for magazines.

In one of the more zany and unexpected exchanges, Kanye sharply criticised Mr Kushner, a former senior White House adviser to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, insinuating that he was a person solely motivated by financial gain.

“I just think it was to make money,” he told Mr Carlson of Mr Kushner’s work facilitating the Abraham Accords, a deal that sought to normalise ties between Israel and Arab nations.

Here, The Independent charts the chummy-turned-hostile relationship between Mr Kushner and Kanye and explain why the recent tensions have unfolded.

Kanye West has sparked fresh controversy by claiming that George Floyd died from fentanyl and that a police officer’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that.”

Floyd, a Black man, was killed in an altercation with police in Minneapolis in May 2020, with a video showing Officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes.

West made the claims in an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast on Saturday and made his comments while discussing Candace Owens’s documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.

“They hit him with the fentanyl, if you look the guys knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” said West.

He then went on to compare George Floyd to fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who died from cancer last November. And he then attacked the “Jewish media” who he claimed he had been “blocked” by.

Graeme Massie has more on this story here.

Right-wing social media app Parler accidentally included the email addresses of more than 200 verified users — including those belonging to Ivanka Trump and Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

Executives at Parler sent out an email on Monday to hundreds of its verified users and investors, but accidentally cc’d the addressees rather than using a bcc, which would have concealed their email addresses.

ICYMI: Rapper and musician Kanye West (aka Ye) posted an antisemitic threat of violence against Jewish people over the weekend. It’s the latest in a string of bigoted remarks which have horrified many former fans. Those remarks, though, have also been celebrated by rightwing media figures and politicians. Kanye’s enthusiastic, undeniable embrace of antisemitism shows that antisemitism is central to, and an inevitable consequence of, the GOP’s embrace of a politics of division and intolerance.

Kanye’s tweet, since deleted for egregious violation of Twitter’s rules, read, “I’m a bit sleepy but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” He added, “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

Kanye’s message here is in line with that of other antisemites from Hitler on down. Like the Nazis, Kanye suggests that Jewish people have great power and are oppressing him. His hatred of Jewish people, and his explicit call for violence, is presented as a reasonable and necessary response to supposed Jewish attacks on him. For antisemites, paranoia and bigotry justify violence and more bigotry.

Read Noah Berlatsky’s full post.

ICYMI: The controversial interview that aired on Saturday night’s Drink Champs has been removed from both YouTube and the Revolt franchise’s website, Rolling Stone first reported.

Host of the YouTube show, N.O.R.E., had appeared on The Breakfast Club on Monday, hours before the interview was pulled, to express his regret for not editing out the sections of the interview which he later admitted were hurtful to people.

“We actually posted it and saw that this was the wrong edit, took it down, and then it got reposted again with those same comments that was there,” N.O.R.E said on the Monday morning radio show while issuing an apology for the contents of the interview where West issued more antisemitic comments and spread misinformation about the death of George Floyd.

“So it was a mistake on our behalf, on our team’s behalf. Because we don’t edit nothing… but we will start from here on out, because we understand that’s people that’s hurt out there.”

The controversial Ye interview on Drink Champs has since been made private on YouTube and the podcast version of the conversation were removed from both Spotify and Apple Music earlier in the day.

ICYMI: Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West spoke on Monday as the pair face similar but unrelated accusations of antisemitism for their recent remarks about Jewish people.

The two spoke over the phone after it was announced that the Grammy-winning yet troubled and controversial artist would purchase Parler, a right-wing social media site, according to Politico, which cited a source familiar with the call.

Mr West apparently initiated the conversation and the two plan to meet in person for dinner in the near future, according to the news outlet. The rapper was banned from Twitter and Instagram after threatening to go “death con 3 on Jewish people” and alleging that Jews are behind his wife Kim Kardashian’s choice to divorce him.

John Bowden has more from Washington.