Fox News hosts who lauded Kanye West fall silent after his InfoWars pro-Hitler rant: report

On Friday, The Daily Beast explored the reactions of Fox News hosts and commentators who praised far-right rapper Kanye "Ye" West after his interview with Tucker Carlson — but before he appeared on InfoWars and professed admiration for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Most of them are either avoiding people trying to ask about it, or simply not saying anything at all.

"'If you express anything outside of Black Lives Matter and say ‘all lives matter’ or ‘white lives matter,’ that’s somehow an insult. An insult to whom? Again, I say watch this interview,' Fox News contributor and resident 'media critic' Joe Concha said on the Oct. 7 broadcast of Fox & Friends First. 'Kanye West is wise, he is unique, and certainly he is fearless,'" reported Justin Baragona. "On Thursday afternoon, after Ye declared that he likes Hitler, Concha observed on Twitter that the rapper’s 'meltdown is complete' and has hit 'a new horrific bottom.' The Fox News pundit then blocked multiple Twitter users who replied to him with his previous remarks cheering West as 'wise' and 'fearless.'"

In contrast to Concha, many Fox News hosts are simply staying silent, said the report: "Following his initial comments, the denizens of Fox & Friends continued to jump aboard the hype train. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt, for instance, raved that 'you can’t help but like him because he is not apologetic' and 'people listen to him because he is interesting.' West is 'fascinating,' she added. '[I’m] glad he is strong enough' to deal with all the adversity he has faced. Earhardt’s colleague Will Cain, meanwhile, boasted: 'He is authentic, he is unfiltered, and he is independent.' Neither Earhardt nor Cain have commented on West’s intellectual rigor following his turn to full-blown Nazism."

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Another supporter of Ye on Fox was anchor Jeanine Pirro, said the report: "Joining them in unabashed Ye appreciation was Jeanine Pirro, who said that evening on The Five that West was 'nobody’s fool,' that she was 'impressed with him,' and that she liked 'a lot of what he said.' The Fox star continued: 'I liked that ‘White Lives Matter.’ It’s not just freedom of speech, he has the chutzpah to say it!' Pirro, too, has yet to comment on the leaked Carlson interview showing antisemitic comments or West’s Nazi pivot." Commentators Greg Gutfeld and Pete Hegseth followed similar patterns.

Even before Ye's Hitler speech, he had been under fire for virulently anti-Semitic comments, including support for the "Black Hebrew Israelite" conspiracy theory stating that the original tribes of Israel are actually Black Africans and modern-day Jews are imposters.