President Joe Biden took to Twitter to denounce Hitler and to encourage political leaders to “reject” antisemitism, noting, “Silence is complicity.” While Biden did not address Kanye West by name, the president’s message was posted less than 24 hours after the controversial rapper went on an antisemitic tirade during a Dec. 1 interview on Alex Jones’ “Infowars” talk show. West praised Hitler during the interview and said he sees the good in the Nazi founder.
“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure,” Biden wrote. “And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity.”
West praising Hitler on “Infowars” was only the latest example of the rapper’s blatant antisemitism in recent weeks. West’s antisemitic hate speech has resulted in Adidas ending its business relationship with him and CAA dropping him as a client. Following his “Infowars” interview, West was banned from Twitter for sharing a photo of a Nazi swastika inside a Jewish star.
Many celebrities and culture writers condemned West following his outspoken praise of Hitler, most notably Jimmy Kimmel. “I haven’t seen anything like this,” the late-night host said. “We have a Black white supremacist running around… Let’s imagine this was another pop star. Imagine if it was Ariana Grande saying this stuff. We’d load her into a cannon and fire her into the ocean, right? But Kanye seems to get crazier every day and he still has fans. And you know an interview’s gone off the rails when you’re watching it thinking, ‘Gee, I hope Alex Jones can talk some sense into this guy.’”
West also claimed during his “Infowars” interview that Hitler cannot be considered all bad since he invented things like the microphone, to which Kimmel responded, “Hitler didn’t invent highways or the microphone. Kanye seems to be the first person claiming Hitler invented the microphone. I think he might be referencing the old myth that Nazis invented the microwave oven…but that’s not a microphone.”
Read Joe Biden’s full tweet denouncing Hitler in the post below.