Disgraced rapper Kanye West admitted “I like Hitler” as he and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes were interviewed by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Infowars.
West, who has been dumped by the likes of Adidas, GAP and Balenciaga following a string of antisemitic comments, repeatedly praised the Nazi leader during his appearance on the show on Thursday morning.
Despite efforts by Jones to say he did not believe West was a Nazi, the hip-hop star cut him off and insisted he was a fan of the man who oversaw the murder of around 6 million Jews.
“You’re not Hitler, you’re not a Nazi, so you don’t deserve to be demonised,” Jones told West, who was bizarrely wearing a black hood over his face in the studio.
But West was not prepared to accept the attempt by Jones to denounce Nazism.
“Well, I see good things about Hitler also,” replied West.
“The Jews...I love everyone, and the Jewish people are not going to tell me ‘You can love us and you can love what we are doing to you with the contracts, and you can love what we are pushing with the pornography’, but this guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good and I am done with that.
“I am done with the classifications. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”
Jone went on to tell the rapper that he had a “Hitler fetish” and as the show cut to a commercial break, Jones told him that he did not like Nazis or Hitler, to which West shockingly replied, “I like Hitler.”
West, who plans on running for president in 2024, later added: “They did good things too, we’ve got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.”
And he added: “The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world.”
After the shocking interview, the Twitter account for the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee deleted a tweet that said “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” The tweet was posted in October, and the account had been under pressure to remove the tweet as West continued making antisemitic remarks.
West’s own Twitter account has been suspended after he violated the platform’s policy against inciting violence by posting a design of a swastika inside the Star of David.
Twitter boss and tech-billionaire Elon Musk confirmed the suspension on Thursday (1 December), tweeting he had “tried his best” to persuade the rapper not to share such posts.
On Thursday night, West shared the image of the Nazi symbol over the Star of David, a symbol of Judaism.
During the interview the same day, West also brought out a net and a bottle of Yoohoo chocolate milk, in an attempt to seemingly mock Israeli Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu.
It came a day after the Israeli politician said that Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago meeting with West and Fuentes was a “mistake.”
“I condemned Kanye West’s antisemitic statements. President Trump’s decision to dine with this person I think is wrong and misplaced. He shouldn’t do that. I think he made a mistake. I hope it’s not repeated,” he told American journalist Bari Weiss.
A number of celebrities condemned West’s comments, including Frozen star Josh Gad, who is Jewish.
“It’s not what Kanye West says that scares me,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s that he has 30 million followers who listen to his insanity on top of a cheerleader in the form of the current owner of this platform.
“No one who says ‘I love Hitler’ should be allowed any oxygen on any social platform (period).”
Jon Stewart summed up his reaction without mentioning West directly:
