Even though Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s interview with Kanye West was so expansive that it ran during both his Thursday and Friday night broadcasts, it appears the far-right cable host left out plenty of newsworthy footage, Motherboard reported on Tuesday.
These segments of the interview omitted from the final broadcasts showed the rap superstar, now known as Ye, casually peddling antisemitism while making strange claims about “fake children” used to manipulate his own kids.
West also revealed that he has been vaccinated against COVID-19, something the anti-vaccine Carlson opted to leave out of the broadcast.
ADVERTISEMENT
Last week, before West went on an antisemitic tantrum on social media, he was welcomed on Carlson’s show to discuss the backlash he faced for donning a “White Lives Matter” shirt alongside right-wing provocateur Candace Owens at Paris Fashion Week.
In the interview that aired on Fox News, Carlson presented West as a conservative folk hero, praising his “interesting, deep, provocative” observations on politics and social issues, even shrugging off concerns about West’s mental-health issues and documented struggles with bipolar disorder.
“Have I reached Alex Jones territory yet?” West wondered at one point after wildly suggesting that “people at The Gap” knew about the Uvalde school shooting ahead of time.
“No, I think you’re telling the truth and that’s OK if you do,” a credulous Carlson responded.
In the days following the interview’s broadcast, which also featured him defending his embrace of the white supremacist slogan “White Lives Matter” slogan because he found it “funny,” West has been under fire for making blatantly antisemitic threats against Jewish people. He has since been locked out of both his Instagram and Twitter accounts.
While Fox News has attempted to do an awkward about-face on West following his hateful comments, Carlson has ignored the controversy altogether, continuing to celebrate the MAGA-aligned rapper alongside Owens.
But thanks to the footage obtained by Vice, we now know that before West promised online to go “death con 3” on “JEWISH PEOPLE” and suggested fellow hip-hop icon Diddy is controlled by Jews, he spewed antisemitic tropes to Carlson, but none of it ever made it to air.
“When I say Jew, I mean the 12 lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people known as the race Black really are. This is who our people are. The blood of Christ. This, as a Christian, is my belief,” West told Carlson in one of the clips obtained by Vice—after claiming Planned Parenthood was founded alongside the KKK to “control the Jew population.”
Aside from amplifying conspiratorial anti-abortion claims, West appeared to be referring to the baseless assertion that Blacks are the “real” Jewish race. This claim, largely attributed to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, has also been used to peddle antisemitism.
At one point in their conversation, West seemingly asked Carlson to remove one of his bizarre remarks.
“Think about us judging each other on how white we could talk would be like, you know, a Jewish person judging another Jewish person on how good they danced or something,” he said before pausing. “I mean, that's probably like a bad example and people are going to get mad at that shit… I probably want to edit that out.” (That line was, indeed, not part of the final edit.)
West also appeared to be upset that his children attend a school that celebrates Kwanzaa, taking an opportunity to toss out yet another blatantly antisemitic trope. “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering,” he told the Fox News host.
In additional unaired footage, West claimed that “fake children” were sent to his home in order to manipulate his own children, and that one of his kids was “kidnapped” on her birthday so that he couldn’t see her.
Elsewhere, in a conversation about COVID-19, West matter-of-factly noted that he is vaccinated, something that never made the broadcast. Carlson has been one of the most vocal critics of the vaccines and has repeatedly and falsely claimed to his viewers the shots are dangerous and even deadly.
A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
