Nick Cannon has tense interview with white nationalist Richard Spencer
'The self-proclaimed alt-right leader praised Christopher Columbus and mocked the Haitian revolution.
For the latest episode of his Cannon’s Class podcast, Nick Cannon welcomed controversial white nationlaist Richard Spencer for a conversation about Christopher Columbus and national holiday dedicated to the Italian explorer.
While Spencer defended the celebration of Columbus Day, Cannon made clear, “I still don’t understand why there’s a holiday.”
“Because he’s amazing,” answered Spencer. Watch their moment via the Instagram video below.
Read More: Nick Cannon, ViacomCBS may reconcile professional relationship: report
Spencer made headlines in 2017 when he joined the alt-right protest over the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, theGRIO previously reported. He also led the torchlit march that set off a weekend of violence during the “Unite the Right” rally, which led to the death of Heather Heyer. At the time, he was caught on audio allegedly spewing racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric during a meeting, per Mediaite.
Read More: Nick Cannon reportedly suing ViacomCBS for $1.5B over rights to ‘Wild ‘n Out’
It was later reported that Spencer, the self-proclaimed alt-right leader, had been banned from dozens of European nations.
During his conversation this week with Cannon, Spencer praised Christopher Columbus and mocked the Haitian revolution.
When the former Wild ‘n Out host noted that “Christopher Columbus is a bedtime story,” Spencer fired back with, “Well, so is the Haitian revolution. They were killing women and children.”
Cannon defended the Haitians before explaining that “nobody was f*cking with” Christopher Columbus.
“He came and started f*cking with people. People were enjoying themselves and he brought famine, disease and just raped and pillaged everything,” Cannon added. “So why would you guys want to protect statues of losers who were clearly on the wrong side of history?” he asked.
“Because they were great,” said Spencer.
“Great losers!,” Cannon replied.
Cannon took to social media to describe his conversation with Spencer as “intriguing.”
Cannon is now catching heat for giving Spencer a platform.
“Nick Cannon: I’m sorry, I’m not antisemitic I don’t hate Jews, really!” Stop Antisemitism.org tweeted. “Also Nick Cannon: let’s host Neo Nazi Richard Spencer and piss off some more Jews.”
Cannon and Spencer’s candid discussion comes less than two months after the former America’s Got Talent host was termination by ViacomCBS and his hit variety show Wild ‘n Out was cancelled over alleged anti-Semitic remarks he made on his podcast. Cannon responded by suing the company for $1.5B, the estimated value of his show.
“It is just that simple, Wild ’n Out belongs to Nick!” Cannon’s team said in a statement. “The show was created by Nick Cannon with his idea and original thought. Wild ’n Out has brought billions of dollars in revenue to Viacom since 2015. And Nick deserves and has earned everything it is worth.”
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