Watch: CNN Hack Implies Kanye May Be Mentally Unstable After He Publicly Supported Trump
The season opener of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” was politically balanced, and by that I mean the cast engaged in a series of groan-worthy sketches about how evil President Donald Trump and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are and Kanye West wore a “Make America Great Again” cap while performing onstage.
In other words, it evened out in the end.
Perhaps Kanye’s most quoted moment came in an unaired speech at the end of the show in which he said people backstage had “bullied” him to not wear that hat.
“I wanna cry right now. Black man in America, you’re supposed to keep what you feel inside right now. And the liberals bully you and tell you what you can and cannot wear,” Kanye said, according to People.
“Actually, blacks weren’t always Democrats,” he said. “It’s like a plan they did to take the fathers out the homes and promote welfare. Does anybody know about that? That’s the Democratic plan.”
Video of that unaired speech has now emerged, making this the perfect time to call West crazy because he’s black and conservative — at least if you’re on CNN’s “New Day.”
As the Kanye video played, hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota remarked on it.
“You can see the body language of some of the cast members behind him,” Camerota said.
“I wouldn’t say it’s warm,” Berman said.
“I think that they’re uncomfortable,” Camerota responded.
And then they got into the matter of Kanye’s mental stability, because of course they did.
“I think it is a little bit uncomfortable, and I just am wondering if it’s time to start worrying about Kanye,” Camerota said.
“He does go on, sometimes, nonsensical rants — I don’t know, I haven’t heard this whole one. … And look, he has taken a break, I think, for some sort of stress-related issue, so I’m concerned,” she said.
Berman decided to bring a modicum of sense to the conversation.
“The president obviously loved it, but I’ll ask you what’s different than Robert De Niro dropping an F-bomb at the Tonys?” he said, referring to the actor’s decision to yell “F— Trump” onstage.
“Well, this went on longer and had more sort of offshoots and different rabbit holes that he went down that were concerning,” Camerota said.
“Well, I look at it as yet another entertainer deciding to get political on company time, as it were,” Berman said.
Yes, because if there’s a niche where CNN has made a name for itself, it’s excoriating entertainers who “get political on company time.” I swear, every time I tune in, Don Lemon is just going after Ashley Judd and Jay-Z for their political activism.
Before I get into how Kanye acted on “Saturday Night Live,” I’d like to know when having a previous mental illness suddenly disqualified you from having political opinions.
Richard Dreyfuss and Ted Turner are two prominent liberal activists who have bipolar disorder; when they say something outré, nobody turns and says, “Well, you know …” and launches into a spiel about being worried about their mental health. That would be horribly offensive. So’s this.
If it’s his demeanor, Kanye has acted like this his entire career. Whenever he wasn’t talking politics, it was written off as him just being a mercurial genius. Now it’s “time to start worrying about Kanye.” If Camerota really wanted to start worrying about West when it comes to this behavior, one can only assume she started following his career the second he came out as a conservative. He’s a cultural icon, Alisyn. Check your white privilege.
This, sadly, isn’t the first time that Kanye’s mental health has been in question since he came out as conservative. Even a Fox News reporter openly said that his “tweetstorm called into question his mental health status” when he first announced his support for Trump. This is the go-to for Kanye: Don’t actually take apart what he said, just question how tethered to reality he really is.
Oh, and that part about going after celebrities “deciding to get political on company time?” That line was funnier than anything on “SNL” last Sunday. John Berman ought to consider comedy.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
