Joe Biden
Joe BidenREUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

US President Joe Biden on Friday condemned antisemitism following the latest controversial remarks by rapper Kanye West.

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

While the President did not mention West by name, the tweet followed the rapper’s interview with Alex Jones of Infowars, in which he said he “loves everyone,” including Jews, as well as Nazis, spoke favorably of Hitler and denied the Holocaust.

Hours later, West posted an image blending a swastika with a star of David on Twitter. In response, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that West’s account had been suspended for violation of Twitter rules that prohibit calls for violence against other individuals or groups.

The part of Biden’s tweet criticizing political leaders for giving antisemitism a platform appears to be a shot at former President Donald Trump, who has caused an uproar in recent days after hosting West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

On Monday, a number of Senate Republicans blasted Trump over the meeting.

Also on Monday, Trump’s former Vice President, Mike Pence, said that Trump should apologize for the dinner with Fuentes.

Speaking to Leland Vittert of NewsNation in an interview, Pence said Trump “was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier, a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize for it and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.”

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell weighed in on the meeting. While he did not mention Trump by name, McConnell said, "There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”

(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)