October 12, 2022

"Ye claimed that he’d rather his kids learn about Hanukkah than Kwanzaa since 'at least it would come with some financial engineering.'"

"His assertion that 'professional actors' had been 'placed into my house to sexualize my kids.' He said he trusted Latinos more than 'certain other businessmen' — a vague descriptor he used to 'be safe.' Ye also told Carlson that he had 'visions that God gives me, just over and over, on community building and how to build these free energy, kinetic, fully kinetic energy communities.' Both in the snippets Vice obtained and what made it on the air, Carlson mostly nodded along with Ye’s commentary. There is no obvious effort to question Ye’s assertions or to express uncertainty about moving forward with the interview at all. What emerges from the fuller context provided by the Vice segments, really, is that Carlson wasn’t really interested in interviewing Ye or presenting his views to his audience. Instead, it’s that Carlson wanted to present a very specific version of Ye to his viewers, a Ye that mirrored Carlson’s rhetoric on race and politics and didn’t go much further...."

From "The Kanye West Tucker Carlson didn’t want his audience to see" by Philip Bump (WaPo). 

Fox News showed an edited version of the interview, and Vox has made some unused material available.

Bump makes assumptions about Carlson: he "wasn’t really interested in interviewing Ye" and "wanted to present a very specific version of Ye." Bump wants to present a very specific version of Carlson

I wonder how much control Carlson had over the interview. Would West have put up with an interview if Carlson had pressed him with questions probing into the accuracy and cogency of his various statements? It seems that a news commentary show ought to have that kind of questioning, so I'd like to hold everyone to that higher standard, not just Carlson. 

Attempting to read the Vox article, the one with all the outtakes, I could see that there had to be editing to fit into Carlson's constrained TV time. And West babbles wearingly, going on about his children and various conspiracies. There are references that a TV viewer would find impenetrable. For example, West said:

"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.”

Vox put some effort into explaining that:

Ye was also referring to the claim, unsupported by historical evidence, that Black people are the “real” Jewish race, which is often used to promote antisemitism. (The Southern Poverty Law Center has a broader explanation of this particular tangled claim, which is often, but not always, associated with the Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement that originated in the 19th century; some Black Hebrew Israelite sects believe that non-Black Jews are impostors or usurpers of “true” Jewish identity.)

Fox News should just make the unedited video available on line (or did it agree to let West or his people edit out what they chose?). Let us judge for ourselves, and let's get more fact-checking and explanation than Vox's cursory "often used to promote antisemitism" and reliance on the SPLC.

It would be easy to brush West aside as mentally ill or to think of him as a person with an artist mind and to value his words as enigmatic poetry of some sort. But he's choosing to engage politically, he's going in at an emotional level, using race and religion, and he's taking advantage of the existence of millions of conservatives who have long been underserved by the glamorous pop stars of America.

71 comments:

Dave Begley said...

As if Sixty Minutes hasn’t been doing this for decades.

What is West’s talent? What is he rich and famous for? Is he a good singer? I saw one video of him on a horse and he was terrible!

Kevin said...

There is no obvious effort to question (the interviewee’s) assertions or to express uncertainty about moving forward with the interview at all.

Now do Jake Tapper.

Birches said...

Lefties are willing to go after Kanye because he's not a Lefty, but judging from a lot of black Hollywood, many more than we'd like to admit have Black Israelite leanings. Nick Cannon was busted for the same thing a few years ago.

Menahem Globus said...

"His assertion that 'professional actors' had been 'placed into my house to sexualize my kids." He married a woman who gained her fame by turning amateur porn into a ticket into the mainstream. What did he expect?

Bob Boyd said...

The devil's in the details and Snatan's in the snippets.

Mike Sylwester said...

... Carlson mostly nodded along with Ye’s commentary. There is no obvious effort to question Ye’s assertions or to express uncertainty about moving forward with the interview at all. What emerges ... really, is that Carlson wasn’t really interested in interviewing Ye or presenting his views to his audience. Instead, it’s that Carlson wanted to present a very specific version of Ye to his viewers ...

Now do Jake Tapper's interview of Joe Biden.

Bob Boyd said...

He's a crazy, mixed-up kid, that Kanye, but I like him.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

No news organization has ever edited an interview for broadcast before! Right?

Sarah Palin should introduce Bump to Katie Couric!

Iman said...

Bump is a bum. Has been for years.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

An entertainer with a skewed view of other ethnic groups and an ongoing dispute over how to raise their children? The devil you say! How can he disagree with those totally normal Kardashians? It’s not like every man in their lives allegedly goes nuts or hides himself away or suddenly changes gender after too much Calabasas time or anything. No. Not at all.

Humperdink said...

My, my, we can't have a influential Black guy go off the reservation, can we?

IMO, Carlson is the most prominent conservative in the media.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Last night I watched PBS late and it was a show on Frederick Douglass. The PBS propaganda was full on... Labeling democrats as anti-slavery. Republicans as pro-slavery.

narciso said...

Fuller context from vice hah

Temujin said...

Bump recognizes it because he works the same way.
As does Vice, WaPo, NBCCBSABCCNNPBSNPR, NYT, and just about every talking head and columnist that you can name who is not on Substack or Patreon.

The difference is that Fox News does tend to show off the other side, and allow the other side to bring on their own opinions without cutting them off at the shoulders when they first open their mouths. Tucker's show is Tucker's show. And being the most watched show on cable tv, he can do what he wants with it. Sure he edits it.

WaPo is still editing Hunter's laptop last I checked. Seems to me that's much bigger an issue than what 'Ye' has to say about Jews or Latinos. Bump is an idiot. Repeatedly.

Michael R. Arndorfer said...

For the record, I am fine being "underserved by the glamorous pop stars of America."

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Exactly - What does Bump have to say about the Biden's international illegal grifting?

We are all still waiting for some journalism.

Big Mike said...

Criticizing Carlson’s interview of West while not criticizing Tapper’s interview of Biden is a form of civility bullshit.

Discuss

TreeJoe said...

Kanye West has been in a steady, downward spiral of mental health issues for a decade now. If you saw him on a Katrina fundraiser blaming George Bush, you saw a man who was not in a solid state of mind.

In regards to how Kanye's (Why are we calling him Ye in a "news article"?) views should be viewed....

- #1, why are we exploiting the mentally ill.
- #2, his views on blacks being the true Jews is a belief. It reminds me of the Rastafarian belief that Haile Selassie is/was God Incarnate. Just present it as his belief, don't couch it in terms for the reader to see his belief as wrong, unless you are willing as a news publisher to do the same to all such beliefs.

...

Man, what a ridiculous attempt to smear tucker carlson by using the mentally ill.

Andrew said...

First, kudos to him for dissing Kwanzaa.

Second, he is right about this: the singer Lizzo is “clinically unhealthy” for her weight. She's a sick, obese, talentless woman, and her advocacy of fatness is damaging to impressionable young people.

Third, what Ye\West did not do was call Jews "parasites," or imply they should be exterminated. But Farrakhan did that. Farrakhan also has beliefs about Jews, and white people, that are just as bizarre and offensive as those of the Black Israelites. And when a photo was released of Obama grinning with Farrakhan, I don't recall Obama suffering any consequences. Or being asked any tough questions by the media.

Fourth, is there some way to talk about globalism, or financial centralization, or elites making decisions that affect the world, without being accused of anti-Semitism?

Lurker21 said...

So he's "Ye" now. I didn't get the memo.

Does that make his records "yé-yé music" like the 1960s French pop we know and love?

And yes, it looks like there may be a horse video. I thought that might be Lil Nas X.

Black Bellamy said...

The man is having a psychiatric episode. He's having delusions. He's manic. And people are seriously discussing what he is saying. Fucking idiots. Is he an anti-Semite or isn't he? What is he saying about the twelve tribes? Oh look he has a beef with Addidas!
He's mentally ill, people! He suffers from life-long mental illness, and at this particular time he's having more issues than normal.
And of course he is being used by vacuous idiots to filter their own stupidity and viewpoints onto others, using him as their vehicle. Nice going. No shame using someone who is sick to get your own point across.

Yancey Ward said...

West, as crazy as he is, is a run of the mill crazy in the celebrity category. If I were Carlson, I would not have interviewed him simply because West is unimportant as a celebrity. If I had interviewed him, I would not have attempted to highlight his craziness, but would have steered the interview into more thoughtful lines of inquiry, and I wouldn't have embarrassed him with "gotchas". The interview Tapper did with Joe "Shit For His Brains" Biden was far more egregious in exactly the way's Hump describes Carlson's interview with West. In the case of politicians, interviewers owe their audience hard and probing questions of political leaders, yet all Tapper did was suck demented Biden's withered cock in public view.

n.n said...

For the sake of social progress, equity, and exclusion, West should undergo transgender conversion therapy (e.g. surgical, medical, or psychiatric corruption) or burden-relief at a Planned Parent/hood facility.

Big Mike said...

But if he was really Jewish he’d know that Hanukkah is a very minor holy day on the Jewish calendar.

Big Mike said...

The PBS propaganda was full on... Labeling democrats as anti-slavery. Republicans as pro-slavery.

Jaw-dropping. As bad as Northeastern Illinois University, which has a plaque honoring Abraham Lincoln as a Democrat.

Drago said...

Lurker21: "And yes, it looks like there may be a horse video. I thought that might be Lil Nas X."

Lil Nas X is channeling Catherine the Great?

Drago said...

Big Mike: "Criticizing Carlson’s interview of West while not criticizing Tapper’s interview of Biden is a form of civility bullshit.

Discuss"

Criticizing Carlson’s interview of popular entertainer and clothes designer West while not criticizing Tapper’s interview of PRESIDENT and Nuke War Provocateur Biden is a form of civility bullshit.

Discuss

Ficta said...

"What is West’s talent? What is he rich and famous for? Is he a good singer?"

At his best, he's a fairly competent rapper, he's an amazing writer with complex introspective lyrics, and he's a best-of-his-generation producer, constructing elaborate and compelling soundscapes. Listen to "Jesus Walks" to hear what all the acclaim was about (the videos, there were apparently three of them, are hard to find online, and I think distract from the experience, at least on first listen). It may or may not be to your taste, but even my wife, who has no interest in rap, said "that's a very interesting song" when she heard it.

Aggie said...

Black is the new Yellow journalism.

Tucker's show is an entertainment device using current events, just like the Daily Show. It's not a news program and makes no effort to present itself as one - and Kanye has always been a troubled and erratic personality, in addition to being an artist. Bump's attack is the usual cheap shots, conducted safely out of reach of any possible direct rebuke. So he sets his subject up with an implicit criticism, calling out for the Teacher's immediate attention for that satisfying disciplinary action. Who would watch it? I don't even watch Tucker in the first place.

Cappy said...

Can't have ye without cch.

rcocean said...

Blacks have historical reasons for distrusting jewish businessmen. Jewish businesses in the Segregated south would often overcharge them and/or sell the shoddy goods. The blacks were a captive market, since the Southern white shopowners wouldn't sell certain goods to them or give blacks credit, and the Jewish shopowners would.

You also had Jewish businessmen taking advantage of blacks in Harlem. Selling them bogus insurance or acting as pawnbrokers. "Dutch" schultz ran the rackets in Harlem. So kayne is probably accessing some historical grieveances.

Roger Sweeny said...

"... underserved by the glamorous pop stars of America."

What a wonderful, ironic, satiric, artistic clause.

n.n said...

First, kudos to him for dissing Kwanzaa.

Kwanzaa was formulated under and to appease the diversity [dogma] model (e.g. racism) a la African-American (50/50) label.

BIII Zhang said...

Has Facebook/Twitter banned Louis Farrakhan? Has Paypal fined him $2,500 per utterance?

If not, then get back to me when they're serious about anti-semitism.

BIII Zhang said...

Has Facebook/Twitter banned Louis Farrakhan? Has Paypal fined him $2,500 per utterance?

If not, then get back to me when they're serious about anti-semitism.

Earnest Prole said...

A man with profound mental illness, milked Left and Right purely for entertainment purposes. He can’t control his words despite his best efforts and all the money a man could ever want or use. What’s your excuse?

hombre said...

So Carlson and Fox edited the West interview to present that which they thought relevant and of interest to their viewers?

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

WaPo and Vox are also shocked because both are known for presenting all sides of political news. /s

PS. Is there anyone who doesn't know "Ye" is a couple of bubbles off plumb?

Kate said...

I'm unwilling to "brush aside" what he says as mental illness. It IS mental illness and it has hijacked everything he wants to say. I'm sorry, but "brushing aside" is exactly what's wrong here. Americans like their eccentrics, and that's how we choose to paint people across the spectrum, even at the unsafe extreme. This man needs medication and not a social media chatter party about what he says. Neither the Left nor Right should use him as the circus clown.

William said...

I don't that much about Kanye West. He acts pretty strange and frequently says strange things. I've never listened to his music and don't pay much attention to him save for when one of his strange utterances gets widespread attention. He doesn't look like a proper fit for either Republicans or Democrats. He's just too strange. So were Prince, Michael Jackson, and Chuck Berry, but they didn't politicize their strangeness. (Michael Jackson was no slouch when it came to anti-semitism, but he didn't compound the error by criticizing Democrats as well.)....Ye needs instruction on how to properly phrase his anti-semitism. If he had gone on at length about Israel's West Bank policies, he'd be up for a Pulitzer.....Isn't it about time that a rap artist won a Pulitzer or maybe even a Nobel. The awards committee bias against rap artists is exclusionary and racist. I hope Ye speaks out against them.

rhhardin said...

An enormous don't care on many levels, and Carlson is a big outrage for ratings show in any case.

News for the right is reporting on the latest outrageous thing that the left just said. News for the left is soap opera as life.

Scott Adams says Ye is a genius artist but I never heard of him except from Scott Adams.

Joe Smith said...

Hear Ye, hear Ye...

Matt said...

Carlson interviewed Ye because he is a black entertainer \ celebrity who has conservative beliefs. And he frequently causes outrage to the point that Carlson felt he could use him to further his narrative about what he sees as a pushback against liberalism. The problem is he got a little more than he bargained for. The reason for the edits is because it shows Ye is odd and it distracts from the narrative.

Michael K said...

If I were Carlson, I would not have interviewed him simply because West is unimportant as a celebrity.

The only TV I watch is Tucker but I turned that off. He does these interviews on Foxnation. Why he chose prime time is a mystery. Maybe he didn't have anything good lined up. Many of his interviews are great but he does choose some odd guests, like Brett Favre.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Big Mike - the corrupt left have not qualms about re-writing history.

Ted said...

"Nick Cannon was busted for the same thing a few years ago."

--Was he really "busted"? He basically met with a rabbi for an hour and said he had learned the error of his ways (i.e., learned not to describe his lifelong worldview in public forums). He kept his job as host of "The Masked Singer," and was actually given his own daily, hour-long Fox TV talk show.

"Let us judge for ourselves, and let's get more fact-checking and explanation than Vox's cursory 'often used to promote antisemitism' and reliance on the SPLC."

--It's 2022, and the internet exists. Saying "I doubt your sources, so you need to prove these obviously antisemitic things are really antisemitic" is not a good look."

Jupiter said...

"(Why are we calling him Ye in a "news article"?)"

He has legally changed his name. If he changes his pronouns, they'll call him "she".

Kanye West is a bag of nuts. I'm surprised Tucker Carlson would have anything to do with him.

Achilles said...

A lot of people find it hard to actually engage what Kanye says. So they call him crazy.

I don't agree 100% with what Kanye says on everything. There are things that I find objectionable.

But most of the comments on this board and certainly in the WAPO do the same thing that the attacks on Trump do.

They have nothing to do with what the person says or does. They are signals to the rest of the tribe that this person is other and we tribe members should all feel better about ourselves by denigrating something different than us.

Most of the people criticizing Kanye are just to limited cognitively to understand what he is saying.

Known Unknown said...

The "who created cancel culture" tweet was about the Pharisees. It has been greatly misinterpreted.

Achilles said...

Earnest Prole said...

A man with profound mental illness, milked Left and Right purely for entertainment purposes. He can’t control his words despite his best efforts and all the money a man could ever want or use. What’s your excuse?

Perfect example of a limited mind signaling to others that he is a part of the tribe by throwing out dumb statements about what Kanye says without actually understanding what Kanye says.

It is OK Prole. We all know how smart you are.

Keep up the snarky snark.

iowan2 said...

Still waiting for my betters to explain to my why I should care about what entertainers think?

Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Some are amplified more than others, but amplification is not validation.
If in conversation, someone offers their position is informed by XXX person, it will be irrelevant. Even the most honest people suffer from confirmation bias.

Earnest Prole said...

Carlson interviewed Ye because he is a black entertainer \ celebrity who has conservative beliefs.

Kanye West’s actual political program (such that it is) most closely resembles the socialism of religious leftists like Cornel West. To the extent he’s attracted to Trump it’s the harmonic vibration of two world-class narcissists rather than anything political. Unlike Trump, Kanye West also has profound bipolar disorder which pulls him well out of his mind from time to time.

Drago said...

Achilles: "Perfect example of a limited mind signaling to others that he is a part of the tribe by throwing out dumb statements about what Kanye says without actually understanding what Kanye says."

It's not easy seeing, much less grasping, the details and nuance when one fancies themselves peering down from Olympus.

victoria said...

"Both in the snippets Vice obtained and what made it on the air, Carlson mostly nodded along with Ye’s commentary. There is no obvious effort to question Ye’s assertions or to express uncertainty about moving forward with the interview at all."


I answer that, Duh.


Vicki from Pasadena

daskol said...

I enjoyed the interview, but then I’m a Ye fan since his first record. Ye > JayZ

daskol said...

I enjoyed the interview, but then I’m a Ye fan since his first record. Ye > JayZ

Sebastian said...

"Bump wants to present a very specific version of Carlson."

Well, yes. As we hotheaded deplorables assume about any prog treatment of any righties.

"I'd like to hold everyone to that higher standard, not just Carlson."

Which is very nice, and truly the world would be better if, etc., but your standards do not prevail and the PTB invoke them, if at all, only as the occasional weapon.

"It would be easy to brush West aside as mentally ill"

Yes, yet possibly correct. Surveying pop culture, and political expression, about how many people could you say the same thing--that it would be easy to brush x aside as mental ill? With a reasonably broad standard of sanity: very many. Which raises a dilemma for Althouse and us commentators: even if our interpretations disagree, we tend to share the assumption of minimal sanity in the figures we discuss. But the assumption is questionable. But how can we take seriously, address on the merits, the products of a possibly disordered mind, except as symptoms of some larger trend or problem?

effinayright said...

Aggie said...
Black is the new Yellow journalism.

Tucker's show is an entertainment device using current events, just like the Daily Show. It's not a news program and makes no effort to present itself as one - and Kanye has always been a troubled and erratic personality, in addition to being an artist. Bump's attack is the usual cheap shots, conducted safely out of reach of any possible direct rebuke. So he sets his subject up with an implicit criticism, calling out for the Teacher's immediate attention for that satisfying disciplinary action. Who would watch it? I don't even watch Tucker in the first place.
**********

You offer the same smear that was leveled against Rush Limbaugh: "it's just entertainment".

How about it's an opinion, advocacy and commentary show, no different from what CNN and MSNBC have been turning out for years?

The difference, of course, is that Tucker draws a much larger audience, so he is hated and feared. In contrast CNN and MSNBC are swirling around the bowl.

No need to tell us you don't watch Tucker---that was obvious from the start.

walter said...

Dave Begley said..What is West’s talent? What is he rich and famous for?
--
If only there was some way to find out....

cassandra lite said...

I've watched Carlson for about four years, and there was never a doubt in my mind that he was an old school Republican polite antisemite. But after the last week, I'm certain that if he could, without losing his gig, go full Father Coughlin, he would.

That he put West on the air for two nights after having seen the kind of antisemitic lunatic West is makes it impossible ever to believe a word he says. Plus, the revelations about West also put a fork in the credibility of Carlson's two main black commentator, Owens and Whitlock. It was a surprise to see/hear Owens try to defend West's antisemitism, but it's not at all a surprise to see that Whitlock agrees with West's "They control everything" attitude.

Michael K said...

Tucker's show is an entertainment device using current events, just like the Daily Show. It's not a news program and makes no effort to present itself as one

For a guy who says he never watches the show, you sure are an authority on it. Usually, Tucker has good information and saves the interviews for his other show. I don't know why he put this in prime time.

narciso said...

Actually tucker brings more real news that the media doesnt cover

He pointed out how much material was left out of the interview

Heywood Rice said...

Most of the people criticizing Kanye are just to limited cognitively to understand what he is saying.

It's a big tent cult people, step right up.

narciso said...


Prog practices he has outlined were clearly condemned as far back as leviticus

BUMBLE BEE said...

Wait just a darn minute. Ann has sparked a controversy here by displaying a leading host's controversy. CAN'T Have That! Giving air to controversy is against MANY terms of usage. Who does that, anyway?

narciso said...

If he was a blood sucker like ths chick from the transformers film he would be fone but since hes a professing christian in a pagan land

PM said...

As you know, Kanye's not even on many top 10 lists, to wit, in ascending order:
Lil Wayne
MF Doom
Royce da 5'9"
Kool G Rap
Nas
Sage Francis
Jay-Z
Chal 2na (potential Starkist lawsuit)
Tech N9ne
Eminem

SGT Ted said...

"There is no obvious effort to question Ye’s assertions or to express uncertainty about moving forward with the interview at all. "

So, kinda like Jake Tappers interview with President Biden.

Rollo said...

Who won? Ye/Tucker or Brandon/Tapper?

Black Israelites are bad dudes. Hoover's FBI would have pitted them against the Nation of Islam and the Rise of the Moors by now.

Aggie said...

Black is the new Yellow journalism.

..was a comment directed at the hack mis-characterizing Kanye West and Tucker Carlson's interview.

"Tucker's show is an entertainment device using current events, just like the Daily Show. It's not a news program and makes no effort to present itself as one ..."

How is that untrue? Does Carlson say he's a news program? No. How is it a smear? I didn't compare Tucker Carlson to CNN or MSNCB, which are sorry excuses for programming that in fact do masquerade as 'news' programming. All I said is that he runs an entertainment program. Why is everyone getting so worked up into a lather?

Haven't any of you ever watched Tucker Carlson or Bill O'Reilly before him, take on a subject that you know inside-out professionally, and watched them get it completely wrong, while stoking up the outrage? Geez - it's what they do for a living. Nothing wrong with it, not criticizing it. I just don't want to watch it.

narciso said...

Tucker is a commentary show raising question no one else seems willing to discuss but that are of grave import

Will we remain a republic what kind of people will we be what will be remembered for?

ROZA GAS said...

good post