Chris Cuomo Confronts Kanye on His Mental Health: Are You ‘Making Sure That You are Behaving and Thinking at Your Best?’

Chris Cuomo challenged Kanye West on his mental health during a wild interview that aired on NewsNation Monday night, and did so with a delicate balance of empathy and calling out the rapper/music producer’s anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

West, who now goes by the name Ye, started a firestorm when he said he was going “Death Con 3” on Jews in a Tweet that since got him suspended from social media. He has doubled down on his anti-Semitic comments in leaked videos from a Tucker Carlson interview that producers opted not to share and even called out the “Jewish underground media mafia” earlier in the Cuomo interview.

Cuomo and West ran circles around each other as the NewsNation host tried to ask the rapper whether he is taking care of his mental health. This as West’s public outbursts have raised new questions about his bipolar disorder, which he has been open about in the past.

“When I hear how you talk about your personal life, and you put things out there, and you get into these looping thoughts of what you believe, it sounds to me like you are sometimes out of control and that this is something that you should be dealing with,” Cuomo said. “Now, I’m not excusing your thoughts as illness, okay? People attacked me for that and said, hey, just because you’re concerned about whether Kanye West is taking care of himself emotionally and mentally.”

“My name is Ye, sir,” West interjected.

“Ye, I’m sorry, Ye is taking care of himself mentally and emotionally. You shouldn’t say that. He has to be held to account for what he says,” Cuomo continued. “Both things can be true. Have you been taking care of your health? And in terms of making sure that you are behaving and thinking at your best?”

West accused Cuomo of rhetorically leading him on and cutting off his answers, even as Cuomo tried to focus on whether Ye is taking care of his mental health. West then tried to defend his outrageous antics while attributing his controversy to not fitting the media’s narrative.

I don’t have to say how much money is in my account. I don’t have to say who I voted on. I don’t have to say why I changed my name. The life for a black person in America is like a constant test. Even after we’re out of high school and we’re out of college. We’re always being questioned. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Do you think that I just had the right and this is a rhetorical question because I don’t want you to answer it. Do you think I had the right to just vote for Trump? I didn’t even vote for Trump because of the people that were around me…So for all of my fellow entertainers that know what I’m saying, I’m not speaking what is called hate speech. I’m saying something that happened out loud to me. And what I’m saying is when I said DEFCON 3, what I was saying is, I’m going to talk about all these things that I saw that just so happen to be by Jewish executives or Jewish friends of mine, where I saw people pulling my coattail, telling me behave, escalate, running the narrative that I’m off, that you need to take your meds. Even this was not supposed to be this conversation. I don’t get a clean platform to tell my truth without being in my name, being called out of my name, being called, suddenly called crazy. I’ve been saying I’m out of control. Part of this thing is you got this. You got people on my ex-wife’s side and this person, Tracy Ramos, every day running a narrative. This person is not even around me because I’m not saying what the media wants me to say. We’re fighting.

“Ye, you’re definitely saying what the media want you to say because it drives headlines and clickbait because of how outrageous it is,” Cuomo countered. “What I’m saying is I just hope that you’re taking care of yourself, that your kids know what you care about, because what you’re saying is not right and not decent.”

This led to West accusing Cuomo of being “unfair,” then going on, once again, about how Jews supposedly control culture by dominating the Black entertainment industry.

“It’s like a modern day slavery and I’m calling it out,” he said. “That’s what Death Con 3 meant. Imma call it out. It didn’t mean I wish any harm on my fellow…”

This led to another collision between Cuomo and West before the former again pushed back on the idea “that our Jewish record producers are inherently bad and do bad things when, as you said, in your own family lineage would suggest Jews have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with black Americans as part of the freedom battle since its inception.”

“They’ve given their lives, they’ve given their money, they’ve given their political capital to help their cause,” Cuomo said. “And you know that and I’m sure you heard it from your parents. So the idea that somehow they’re out to get Black people is just demonstrably false.”

Cuomo and West left things off after that with another tense exchange on the rapper’s health.

Watch above via NewsNation.