Kanye West news – Biden says ‘silence is complicity’ as Elon Musk suspends rapper for posting swastika

Vice President Kamala Harris has also weighed in to condemn Kanye West’s remarks, writing that “praising Hitler and denying the Holocaust is vile, appalling, and must be condemned.”

“Our Administration will continue to stand up against antisemitism and the epidemic of hate,” she added.

Earlier on Friday, President Joe Biden said officials who remain silent in the face of virulent antisemitism are complicit in its platforming.

“Instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity,” he wrote.

Despite an October statement hailing a world-changing deal to purchase the right-wing social media app, Parler will not be selling the platform to Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

The company announced that they reached a mutual termination agreement on 1 December, hours after the rapper and virulent antisemite praised Adolf Hitler and his love for Nazis on an InfoWars broadcast with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

They announced that the decision was made in mid-November.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged “every” political leader to condemn antisemitism after the rapper formerly known as Kanye West – who recently dined with Donald Trump and intends to run for president in 2024 – praised Hitler and Nazism.

“It’s staggering that it needs repeating: Hitler and his Nazi regime are the embodiment of evil,” the congresswoman said. “Being a celebrity isn’t a license to spew hatred. Every leader must condemn despicable antisemitic rhetoric & always speak out against antisemitism, no matter whatever form it takes.”

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, said he is “in pain” after Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks praising Nazism and amplification of Holocaust denialism.

“I’m in pain right now. Perpetuating lies, such as the denial of the Holocaust, and praising fascist murderers, is dangerous and fans the flames of antisemitism and hate,” wrote Mr Emhoff, who is Jewish.

“We all have an obligation to condemn these vile acts. We must not stay silent,” he added.

Following Kanye West’s antisemitic outbursts, the US Holocaust Museum and Auschwitz Memorial have shared a wealth of resources and stories on social media about the rise of Nazism, victims of Hitler’s genocidal violence and how the party’s emblem emerged and remained an icon of hateful propaganda.

During his appearance on Alex Jones’s InfoWars broadcast on Thursday, West denied the Holocaust happened, falsely claimed that it is “factually incorrect" that 6 million Jewish people were murdered, and said “I like Hitler” and “I am a Nazi”.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America has warned that the rapper formerly known as Kanye West’s antisemitism is “dangerous [and] must be condemned by all.”

“So should Trump’s decision to repeatedly defend him,” the group said in a statement. “Those who refuse to explicitly acknowledge Trump’s role in fueling the fire of hate make it harder to fight antisemitism [and] extremism.”

The former president has largely remained silent on hosting West at his Mar-a-Lago club with prominent white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes.

After President Joe Biden suggested that officials who are silent against Kanye West’s praise for Hitler and Nazism are complicit in his antisemitism, White House press secretary did not say which officials he was directly mentioning, but she pointed to the president’s repeated insistence to publicly condemn such hate.

“Like you’ve also heard him say, the common theme of all forms of bigotry is that hate doesn’t go away, it only hides,” she told reporters on Friday. “The grotesque poison of antisemitism is not hiding.” She added that it doesn’t necessarily matters “who in particular” he was addressing.

“I think what the president is trying to say is being silent is complicit. And when we see this type of hatred, when we see this type of antisemitism, we need to call it out,” she said.

“It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the Christian message Kanye West is spreading isn’t one of love, but of Christo-fascist dominance and control,” Noah Berlatsky writes for The Independent’s Voices.

The chair and CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which recently hosted top Republicans including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis at a major conference in Las Vegas, have condemned Thursday’s InfoWars show as a “horrific cesspool of dangerous, bigoted Jew hatred”.

National Chairman (and former US Senator) Norm Coleman and CEO Matt Brooks said the broadcast with Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes and Kanye West reflected “a disgusting triumvirate of conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers, and antisemites.”

“We vehemently condemn those comments and call on all political leaders to reject these messengers of hate and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong,” they said in a staement on Thursday.

“Given his praise of Hitler, it can’t be overstated that Kanye West is a vile, repellent bigot who has targeted the Jewish community with threats and Nazi-style defamation,” they added.”

“Conservatives who have mistakenly indulged Kanye West must make it clear that he is a pariah. Enough is enough.”

The Twitter account for prominent neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, founder of the notorious website The Daily Stormer, has been reinstated. He was removed from the platform in 2013.

His return to Twitter comes just days after a judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest, after he was accused of ignoring a $14m judgment against him for an antisemitic harassment campaign against a Montana family.