Jewish groups call out TV host Nick Cannon for defending Louis Farrakhan and spreading anti-Semitic conspiracies

Jewish groups called out megastar host Nick Cannon over a resurfaced YouTube video where he ranted about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Audio of the bizarre claims from Cannon were posted to social media from critics who called for Cannon to be dropped from his current entertainment projects. The video comes from his YouTube show named "Cannon's Class" in an episode from 2019.

"When we speak of, because this is where it truly is, and we talk about the six corporations, when we go as deep as the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the thirteen families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America, when we talk about the people who if we were truly the children of Israel, and we're defining who the Jewish people are, because I feel like if we actually can understand that construct then we can see that there really is no hate involved," Cannon explained.

"When we talk about the lies, the deceit, how the fake dollar controls all of this, then maybe we can get to the reason why they wanted to silence you and why they wanted to silence Mister Farrakhan and they want to throw that, we are having hate speech when it's never hate speech," he added.

"You can't be anti-Semitic when the Semitic, when we are the Semitic people, when we are the same people that you, who they want to be, that's our birthright," Cannon said.

"That's our birthright!" agreed rap artist Richard "Professor Griff" Griffin.

"So if that's truly our birthright, there is no hate involved. How did this message get so misconstrued?" Cannon asks.

Jewish groups respond

Numerous Jewish groups condemned Cannon for the conspiracy-laden rant and called for the Fox network to take action over the comments.

"Truly disturbing that @NickCannon would use his platform to perpetuate false antisemitic conspiracy theories and lift up the vehemently antisemitic Louis Farrakhan. He should apologize immediately and educate himself on why his comments are so harmful," responded Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.

The American Jewish Committee called the comments "abhorrent and unacceptable" in a tweet.

"His message of hate has no place in our society and should be condemned by all people of good conscience," the committee added.

Dov Hikind of Americans Against Antisemitism called on Fox to condemn and apologize for Cannon's comments.

Cannon denied that he had used hate speech in a lengthy statement on Twitter.

"Anyone who knows me knows that I have no hate in my heart nor malice intentions. I do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric. We are living in a time when it is more important than ever to promote unity and understanding," he said in part.

"The Black and Jewish communities have both faced enormous hatred, oppression persecution and prejudice for thousands of years and in many ways have and will continue to work together to overcome these obstacles," he added.