Howard Stern is weighing in Kanye West‘s antisemitic rhetoric.
On Wednesday’s Howard Stern Show, he discussed West’s comments and continued support of them in a string of interviews.
“I almost don’t want to give any energy to this Kanye West character,” the SiriusXM host said. “I don’t know much about Kanye West,” who has bipolar disorder. “I’m not big into the rap scene, but he is … I’m really tired of people excusing his behavior by saying, ‘Well, he’s just mentally ill.'”
His co-host Robin Quivers added, “So was Hitler and someone elected him to run a country.”
Stern said “a lot of media organizations” were giving Ye “attention” over his “wacky, antisemitic rant he feels free to spout” after earlier this month declaring he would go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” — he’s talked to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, Chris Cuomo and Piers Morgan, to name a few — and “rightly so” because they are “exposing him.”
Stern said growing up Jewish, he experienced antisemitism. People would start fights with him — “groups of people with chains hitting me all because they’ve been taught the Jews are evil and killed Jesus. What the f***. I didn’t kill Jesus.”
Speaking of West’s interview on Cuomo’s show on Monday, he said, “Good lord, you gotta hear the s*** this guy’s into. And f*** this mental illness, self-defense thing … ‘Oh yeah, he’s just mentally ill, don’t worry about it.'”
Stern wondered why, if West is “so mentally ill … they don’t they appoint a conservator over his money like they did with poor Britney Spears? … You know who was mentally ill? The guy that shot up that synagogue in Pittsburgh. If he’s that mentally ill, let’s commit him somewhere already.”
Stern played clips from Cuomo’s interview. One had West ranting about the “Jewish underground media mafia” canceling him for the White Lives Matter shirt he wore to his Yeezy show this month. He also complained that the media doesn’t refer to him as “billionaire,” “inventor” and “visionary,” only “rapper.”
“Guess what, douchebag,” said Stern. “When they write about me, they call me ‘the shock jock.’ You don’t have control over [it]. You’re a rapper. That is what you are. That’s how you became famous. If a newspaper article doesn’t point out the fact that you’re some sort of designer or genius, maybe that’s not because he’s Jewish, but maybe because he just doesn’t put that much thought into who the f*** you are and what your business is.”
Stern called the whole thing “so depressing,” saying “Kanye used to be fun crazy, now he’s like Hitler.” He also pointed out that Jewish people make up just “2.4% of the total U.S. population,” adding, “I don’t think they’re your problem, Kanye.”
The same day, Jon Stewart called it “mind-blowing” how easily antisemitic comments flow “from people’s mouths.”
He said on his podcast that the word antisemitic “just doesn’t even carry it anymore. It’s just weird, Jew paranoia bulls***.” Stewart, who was also raised Jewish, said West was putting all Jews into one category while viewing non-Jews as individuals.
“If you are Jewish, then you’re part of the Jewish mafia,” he said. “But if you’re not, then you’re just a guy who is a d*** to him in business.”
While Stern and Stewart join others including Jamie Lee Curtis, John Legend and Sarah Silverman in speaking out against West’s comments, West continues to spout them. On Wednesday, he appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored and gave a what we will generously call a partial apology for the “death con 3 on Jewish people” remark.
Morgan asked West if he now regrets his comment and West first replied, “No. Absolutely not,” which repeated several times. He said he made the comment knowing it was racist: “Yes, I fought fire with fire.”
Later in the interview, however, West did say, “I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the defcon [comment]… I felt like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through.”
In another part, he ranted about President Biden not taking meetings with billionaire Elon Musk, calling it “f***ing retarded.” He acknowledge that he use of a derogatory term that is outdated and offensive but doubled down. “I know I’m not supposed to say that, Biden, but that’s f***ing retarded.”
