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

George Floyd’s family is also considering a lawsuit against Kanye West after he spoke about how the 46-year-old man died over the weekend, according to their lawyer

Kanye West claims George Floyd’s killer didn’t really have knee on his neck

Kanye West has pologised for causing “hurt and confusion” with antisemitic comments he made last week.

Appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Wednesday (19 October), the host asked the rapper whether he regretted threatening to go “DEFCON 3 on Jewish people”.

West initially doubled down on his comments, replying: “No, absolutely not.” Morgan then asked if he knew the comments were racist, to which West confirmed: “Yes, that’s why I said it... I fought fire with fire. I’m not here to get hosed down.”

Elsewhere, the mother of George Floyd’s daughter has sued Kanye West for $250m in the wake of his controversial comments about Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer.

And now Floyd’s family has issued a cease-and-desist letter to West for the comments he made on the Drink Champs podcast, which has now been taken down.

In the lawsuit filed by Roxie Washington, the mother of Gianna Floyd, lawyers said West made “false statements about George Floyd’s death to promote his brands, and increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates.”

Earlier, The Drink Champs interview was pulled from YouTube, Rolling Stone reports.

The YouTube show’s host, N.O.R.E., apologised for the contents of the interview that he said “hurt” people during a Monday morning radio show appearance. Hours later, the video had been made private on YouTube while the podcast version of the conversation was removed from both Spotify and Apple Music earlier in the day.

Late in the night on Monday, Tesla billionaire and potential Twitter owner Elon Musk appeared to tease a possible business collaboration with West after he tweeted out a meme - and then deleted -that hinted at a team-up with the rapper and Parler, the right-wing social network he is in the process of acquiring.

Key Points

• Kanye West apologises for ‘hurt’ he has caused
• Kanye West calls Piers Morgan a ‘Karen’ in interview about antisemitic comments
• Mother of George Floyd’s daughter sues Kanye West for $250m
• Kanye marched for George Floyd and paid daughter’s tuition – now he’s being sued by his family. What changed?
• Kanye’s ‘Drink Champs’ interview removed from YouTube, Revolt

[20 October 2022 00:05 · Graeme Massie]

Kanye West calls Piers Morgan a ‘Karen’ in interview about antisemitic comments

“You don’t hold accountability to my pain, you’re being a Karen,” West told the presenter in a TalkTV interview, parts of which were aired on Wednesday.

[20 October 2022 00:33 · Graeme Massie]

Jon Stewart slams Kanye West and Donald Trump for ‘Jew paranoia bulls***’

Comedian Jon Stewart has slammed Kanye West and Donald Trump for their “weird Jew paranoia bulls***.”

The former Daily Show host addressed the rapper’s antisemitism controversy and the one-term president’s comments on Israel in the companion podcast to The Problem with Jon Stewart.

[20 October 2022 01:04 · Graeme Massie]

Kanye West says he’s sorry for ‘hurt and confusion’ caused by antisemitic comments

Rapper initially doubled down on his comments saying he ‘fought fire with fire’, writes Tom Murray.

[20 October 2022 01:32 · Graeme Massie]

Why are we still listening to Kanye West?

Each time a new outrage-inducing line from Kanye West emerges, I wonder at what point we are doing more harm than good by giving his vitriol oxygen through our reporting, writes Megan Sheets.

[20 October 2022 02:06 · Graeme Massie]

Trump complains about American Jews in video leaked after he defended Kanye West in antisemitism row

The former president is frequently accused of racism and antisemitic remarks, writes Josh Marcus.

[20 October 2022 03:03 · Graeme Massie]

Netanyahu declines to condemn Trump’s antisemitic comments

ICYMI: Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday refused to say whether former president Donald Trump’s threat that American Jews should be more appreciative of him “before it’s too late” was antisemitic or opine on whether the twice-impeached ex-president is an antisemite.

Mr Netanyahu – who has twice served as Israel’s prime minister – was pressed on Mr Trump’s latest antisemitic comments while promoting his memoir on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Asked what he made of Mr Trump’s claim that Jews in the US should be more appreciative of what he has done for Israel — an invocation of dual loyalty tropes that most observers have condemned as classic antisemitism — Mr Netanyahu invoked Mr Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and his daughter, a convert to Judaism.

“Well, you know, he has a Jewish son-in-law and his daughter converted to Judaism, his grandchildren are raised as Jews,” he said.

Andrew Feinberg has the full report below.

[20 October 2022 04:09 · Graeme Massie]

Ice Cube asks Kanye West to ‘leave my name out’ amid antisemitism row

ICYMI: Ice Cube has asked Kanye West to leave his name out of “all the antisemitic talk” after the fellow rapper mentioned him in a recent podcast episode.

Speaking of his antisemitic comments, West said that Ice Cube “really set me up for this”.

“[He] really influenced me to get on this antisemite vibe,” West claimed during the podcast episode, which has since been taken down.

On Tuesday (18 October), Ice Cube said he didn’t know “what Ye meant” with regard to his remarks and urged those with such questions to direct their inquiries toward the rapper.

[20 October 2022 05:04 · Graeme Massie]

Trump says Kanye West was great for MAGA

ICYMI: Donald Trump called Kanye West great for MAGA before telling a TV host that he couldn’t comment on the rapper’s slight against his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, which he made during an interview with Tucker Carlson, because he hadn’t seen that portion of the conversation.

“He’s been saying some really offensive things lately about your own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and about Jewish people. Jewish Americans writ large. Could you react to that? Because is this the guy that you knew?” said Salem News’s Larry O’Connor during a telephone call with the former president.

During that two-part Fox News interview, West sharply criticised Mr Kushner, a former senior White House adviser to his father-in-law, and insinuated 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.

In response, Mr Trump had this to say: “Well, I haven’t really seen the statements he’s made. I did watch the Tucker Carlson interview and he was really nice to me. Beyond anybody, he was. He was great to me,” he said.

He added in showering West with compliments, while being careful to dodge any explicit acknowledgement of his recent antisemitic remarks or his slights against his son-in-law.

“And he was great, really, to MAGA, to the MAGA movement, which was very impressive. I was, you know, not surprised. I always got along with him. I liked him. I’ve always gotten along with him,” he said.

[20 October 2022 06:06 · Graeme Massie]

ICYMI: Critics worry Elon Musk and Kanye West owning social networks will embolden right-wing forces

ICYMI: Observers are alarmed at the increasing trend of right-leaning businessmen buying up social networks, from Kanye West buying Parler, to Peter Thiel funding Rumble, to Donald Trump’s Truth Social.

“It’s never been about free speech,” advocacy group Public Citizen said in a tweet on Monday. “It’s about power. It’s about control. It’s about evading accountability.”

Here’s what critics have said about the direction Mr Musk could take Twitter.

[20 October 2022 07:01 · Graeme Massie]

George Floyd’s family is right to hold Kanye West to account for his hateful comments

Rapper has made a stunning about-face since his words and actions in 2020, writes Michael Arceneaux.