Biden says US political leaders should be ‘calling out’ anti-Semitism

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Friday urged US political leaders to denounce anti-Semitism, days after Donald Trump hosted a well-known Holocaust denier and rapper Kanye West -- whose virulent anti-Semitic outbursts culminated this week with praise of Adolf Hitler.

“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure,” Biden tweeted. “And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides.”

“Silence is complicity,” Biden added. The US president was speaking out the day after West -- who now goes by the name Ye -- was kicked off Twitter for incitement to violence, following a post showing a Nazi swastika interlaced with a Star of David.

That came on the heels of an unhinged, hours-long interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, in which West professed his “love” of the Nazis and declared “I like Hitler.”

The White House had previously condemned Trump for hosting West at Mar-a-Lago last week. According to the former president, the rapper brought along several friends to dinner, one of them the white supremacist Fuentes.

An outspoken anti-Semite, Fuentes saw his YouTube channel permanently suspended in early 2020 for violating the platform´s hate speech policy. West, who has hinted he is running for US president in 2024, has spoken openly about his struggles with mental illness, and his erratic behavior has raised mounting concerns.

The businessman has seen his commercial relationships crumble after a series of anti-Semitic comments, as the one-time titan of fashion and music appears to have entered a disturbing spiral. In his Thursday appearance on the Infowars show fronted by Jones, West wore a black mask completely covering his face, as he ranted about sin, pornography and the devil.