Kanye West has doubled down on his antisemitic comments in October and November, by voicing his "love" of Adolf Hitler and denying that the Holocaust happened.
West, who now goes by Ye, made his latest comments on Thursday during Alex Jones' InfoWars podcast, where even the host, an alt-right political figure, pushed back against the rapper's statements.
Many public figures have spoken out against Ye's remarks, while the Republican Jewish Coalition has said "enough is enough." It called the show, which also featured white supremacist Nick Fuentes, a "horrific cesspool of dangerous, bigoted Jew hatred."
The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League has called Ye a "vicious antisemite" for his recent comments and behavior.
Across the near-three-hour show, West made a number of statements relating to Hitler, Nazis and the Holocaust.
Here is a rundown of all of Ye's antisemitic remarks during his appearance on InfoWars with Jones and Fuentes.
Jones: I've done a lot of study. I think Hitler was a really bad guy and I repudiate what Hitler did. I understand that the British intelligence set him up and used him-
West: I like Hitler.
Jones: I don't like Hitler. I know you're trying to be shocking with that.
West: I'm not trying to be shocking. I like Hitler. I do not... the Holocaust is not what happened. Let's look at the facts of that. Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities
This is West's first insistence that the Holocaust is "not what happened." His new acquaintance Fuentes is a known Holocaust denier.
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as numerous other historical fact-checkers, around six million Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust between 1941 and 1945 in Europe.
In a 2011 song from his album with Jay-Z, Watch the Throne, West mentioned the event in his song "Who Gon Stop Me." The opening line of the song, delivered by West, goes, "This is something like the Holocaust, millions of our people lost."
At various points during the interview, West also held up a small net and spoke in a high-pitched voice, seemingly imitating Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel.
Jones: Well, CNN says white people are evil Nazis, so I mean, I disagree with those statements, but I get the...
West: I don't like the word 'evil' next to Nazis. I think we need to look at..." Alex Jones laughs, and West pauses to laugh with him.
Jones is an outspoken opponent of the news outlet CNN, but he is exaggerating his opinion by suggesting that the news outlet claims "white people are evil Nazis."
Jones: The Nazis in my view were thugs and shook people down and a lot of really bad things.
West: But they did good things, too. We've got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.
Jones: OK.
**
West: The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world.
**
Jones: OK, well, why would the Zionists be killing Jews in mass in Israel with the poison shot?
West: Because they work for Satan. They don't work for God.
Jones: Exactly.
Jones himself is a known conspiracy theorist, and there is seemingly no evidence to support his claim that Zionists, people who support developing Israel as a Jewish nation, are killing people "in mass."
Jones: And you got a little bit of the Hitler fetish going on.
West: It's not a fetish. It's not a fetish. That's a term, like... I just love information.
**
Jones: Can we just kind of say, like, you liked the uniforms, but that's about it?
West: No. There's a lot of things that I love about Hitler. A lot of things. Hey, Netin, what did you think about that Netin? 'This is insane. You're insane person.'
West elongates his speech when he says there are things he "loves" about Hitler. He makes his voice higher again as he impersonates Netanyahu as his net.
West: Germans had a really cool leader one time.
Jones: Oh, my god.
**
West: And he didn't kill six million Jews. That's just like factually incorrect. But for the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), I want to say there's a lot of good Nazis that were just fighting for their country and for them all.
Jones: Like George Soros.
West: And for them all to get put in a box. They're all in a box. Every Nazi is bad? Well, could some of the Nazis have just been fighting for their country? Oh, they're all, 'Oh, we can't put them all in a box.'
Jones said that businessman and philanthropist Soros is a "Nazi", but this appears to be untrue. Born György Schwartz in 1930, he survived the Nazi-occupation of his home country, Hungary, until the end of World War II in 1945.
West's claim about Nazis just "fighting for their country" is an argument that has been made for decades, and it has also been used as a legal defense.
"Superior orders," or the "Nuremberg defense," was a commonly stated plea by Nazi soldiers during the Nuremberg trials in Germany from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, though it is still disputed as to whether this is a valid defense.
When Newsweek reached out to the Anti-Defamation League for a response to West's statements, they referred to tweets written by their CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
He wrote: "Saying you 'like Hitler,' 'love the Nazis,' and spending all your time with a white supremacist makes one thing clear: Ye is a vicious antisemite. His comments today on InfoWars are not just vile and offensive: they put Jews in danger."
Greenblatt also called on Elon Musk to remove Ye from Twitter after he'd been welcomed back to the platform.
At this point, Musk had already acted and removed West from Twitter.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jamie Burton is a Newsweek Senior TV and Film Reporter (Interviews) based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more
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