Fox News hosts make on air U-turn after learning what Kanye West actually tweeted

Kanye West. Credit: MEGA/GC Images

The hosts of Fox News’ Fox & Friends Weekend were forced to make an on-air u-turn after learning about the hateful things Kanye West actually tweeted over the weekend.

Initially, Will Cain, Pete Hegseth and Rachel Campos-Duffy supported West after it was revealed he was banned from Instagram for posts deemed “anti-semetic”.

On Saturday (October 8) West shared a series of texts he’d exchanged with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs following Combs’ criticism of his ”White Lives Matter” t-shirt – a slogan tied to white supremacist movements. In one of those texts, West wrote to Diddy: “I’ma use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.” Shortly after that, his Instagram account was restricted by Meta and posts were removed.

“We’re in this weird era where people can’t just say what they want to say,” said Campos-Duffy, who had seen the post. “This idea you have to just shut down his account is just, it’s totally totalitarian, totally anti-American. It’s just wrong.”

Following his Instagram restriction, West returned to Twitter and said: “I’m a bit sleepy but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people. The funny thing is that I actually can’t be anti-semitic because Black people are actually Jews. Also, you guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone who opposes your agenda.” His Twitter account was suspended soon afterwards.

After an ad break, Cain, Hegseth and Campos-Duffy returned to Fox & Friends Weekend and seemed far less supportive of West. “Ye West threatening to go to war with Jewish people on Twitter,” said Hegseth (via the Independent) before calling the whole affair “ugly” and “unfortunate”.

“We talked about it earlier without knowing about these tweets and saying of course there’s going to be a target (on West)” Hegseth continued. “But in this particular case, he brought the target.”

However, Campos-Duffy did not condemn the posts and instead asked whether West “should he be removed from Instagram and who gets to decide that?”

Following the backlash to his White Lives Matter, West sat down with Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson – who himself has long history with allegations of racism and the promotion of white nationalist rhetoric – wherein West admitted that he found the shirt, and his idea to wear it, to be funny.

The likes of Jaden Smith and figureheads at Supreme and Vogue have taken issue with the stunt.

Meanwhile, Canadian singer-songwriter Esthero – who co-wrote West’s ‘808s & Heartbreak’ tracks ‘Love Lockdown’, ‘Street Lights’ and ‘Robocop’ – says she intends to donate her cut of publishing royalties for the tracks to Black Lives Matter in response to West’s actions.

The post Fox News hosts make on air U-turn after learning what Kanye West actually tweeted appeared first on NME.