>> Kanye's anti-semitic statements have emboldened Nazi groups in
deeply red parts of the country, including Los Angeles seriously.
In fact over the weekend there were some Nazi groups who had decided
to unfurl anti Jewish signage right above the 405 freeway again in Los Angeles.
Nazis were photographed standing on an overpass on the 405 freeway,
the massive interstate that is like the spine of Los Angeles on Saturday.
Among the banners hanging over the rushing cars were "Honk if you know Kanye is
right about the jews".
Another banner cited part of the bible which apparently reads quote "Behold,
I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and
are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet,
and to know that I have loved thee" and that's from revelations.
So now there's increased pressure for Adidas to drop Kanye West and
as we discussed the story at this moment, they have still failed to end any
business deal that they have with him that they've been working with him.
As one of their spokespeople, he has been putting out his sneakers with Adidas.
And after the first round of disgusting anti Semitic comments,
Adidas said that they would review their relationship with Kanye but
they hadn't really severed ties with Kanye.
Now, Adidas, whose founders were in fact Nazis,
I don't know how many people are aware of that has said it has placed its contract
with West "under review" but has not severed its ties, despite calls to do so
by the Anti-Defamation League and others.
The West collaboration reportedly brings in quite a bit of money $2 billion
a year and that is 10% of the company's revenue.
So as you can imagine money talks and it seems like they're reluctant to
drop Kanye and again, as we speak of this now they have failed to do so.
Now there have been other brands and talent agencies that have boycotted or
dropped their business relationship with Kanye,
Balenciaga is no longer working with him.
CIA the talent agency that used to represent him has also dropped him
of course, and the head of United Talent Agency also put out a memo calling for
a boycott of Kanye West, his products and music.
So the, I'll get to his statements in just a moment, but Jake,
I'm curious what you think because it is, we do talk about this quite often,
like with Nike doing a campaign with Kaepernick.
They they don't do it because they genuinely believe in what Kaepernick
stands for, they do it because they think it's going to make them money and
to be sure that ad campaign did bode well for their bottom line.
In this case, I think Adidas is like trying to find the right calculation,
but they are getting attacked for not taking a stance.
>> Yeah, this stands of money underlying, that's what's happening,
so let me break it down for you guys.
First of all, I was worried as you guys all saw if you watched when
Kanye first came out with those comments,
I said this is opening the closet door to Anti Semitism and
giving people permission to walk through that door and come out of the closet.
And it's going to get worse and worse and instantly started getting worse and
worse with more right wing commenters, pundits,
talk show hosts beginning to say similar things,
Donald Trump putting out some Anti Semitic comments and now there are Nazis in LA.
And maybe they were always Nazis in LA, but
they never bothered to put up banners and do salutes on the 405, right?
So and now they have been given permission and they explicitly say because of Kanye.
So super dark times, if you're not Jewish, so you're not worried about Anti-Semitism
number one, that means you're a bad person, you should be worried about all
kinds of bigotry and discrimination, no matter who it's done to.
But number two,
there were another reason to be worried about the rise of Anti-Semitism is that
it is one of the last things that goes before full blown fascist.
And so historically that's almost always the pattern and here we are, we had
a thousands things going, so a thousands big things go in the direction of fascism,
like not believing in democracy anymore and trying to tear
down the government if you don't win an election in a democracy, right?
And now here comes Anti-Semitism, so this is a massive issue.
So now look, you have the right wing break their current machines if I
remember right and burn their nikes, and they had the left wing protest
chick fil a which I took apart as like the only boycott I took apart in etc.
And so we've had these and some of been important, some been around the edges.
This one is not at all around the edges and it's super important.
So this is not a close call at all, it's not within a mile of a close
call cuz he's not using a dog whistle, he's using a foghorn.
He's saying, I'm going death con three on Jewish people,
he's saying that Jewish media mafia controls all the media.
This is crazy, this is not so bigotry, right?
And and so now Adidas in their history,
let me tell you if that's why they did it or if it's another reason.
So I didn't know this until all this thing came out it turns out there was
a dash loop routers, okay?
Who used to run a sneaker company in Germany, and then the Nazis came and
then they did business with the Nazis.
And they had two brothers, one was Rudolph, the other one was Adolf,
one was more pro Nazi, that was slightly less pro Nazi, okay?
And the one that was slightly less pro Nazi was actually Adolf ironic.
And where does Adidas come from?
It comes from is from Dassler, that's their last name,
and Addi is short for Adolf, I did not know that, okay?
So that's Adidas, that's discomforting, okay?
But remember, [CROSSTALK] he was a less of a Nazi than Rudolph was, and
Rudolph they split but I know I'm kidding, like what difference does it make, right?
But actually, if you read the history of it,
there was one Jewish family that vouched for Adolf Dassler and
said that he hid them, I don't take it for what it's worth, right?
But he totally profited from the Nazi regime, so that's Adidas,
the other guy was way more Nazi and he formed puma, okay?
So those are the two comments, so
is that why the Germans are still holding on to that?
No, those guys are long dead,
these are not corporate executives who are looking to maximize profit.
I don't know if they have any personal Anti-Semitism,
I don't know them at all, right?
But the reality is a much bigger deal is they have a yearly contract
with Kanye West, that is worth $220 million dollars a year.
My guess, now, that's just a guess is that there's a clause in that
contract that if they dump him, he gets paid anyway.
So that's probably why they're going,
my God this is a billion dollars over five years, are we about to set it on fire?
>> Yeah, you go ahead pay him anyway, because now all of
these people who had no idea about the pretty gross and
dark history of Adidas are learning about the history of Adidas.
I'm sure there was some work done to kind of rehab the reputation of
this shoe company, and now they're probably gonna have to
spend a lot of money rehabbing the reputation of this shoe company.
I think it would have been far better first of all, I mean look,
obviously you can talk about the moral thing to do.
But when you're talking about corporations, discussing morality is
really it's a moot point, because they're not in any way motivated by what is and
is not moral, they're motivated by their profits, right?
By their bottom line, and so if that's what they're doing,
if that's the only calculation they have in mind, I mean it would be far better
to take a strong stands against Kanye and Anti-Semitism like from the get go,
from the beginning rather than this wishy washy like our contract is under review.
All right, great, so let's take a deep dive into the history of your shoe
company and what you guys supported,
which was the brutal slaughter of millions of Jewish people and others.
>> Yeah and look guys, probably the executives that are making these decisions
are the executives that have that crappy contract with Kanye in the first place.
So they're thinking my God if I let go of this billion dollars that's
gonna land right on top of my head and I'm gonna get fired.
And so that's probably the calculation that's going on here, luckily as always
we do constructive critique, so I have a solution for them, okay?
Shut down your company, I'm kidding.
So that no the solution is guys you come out against Kanye and
then you say he violated the contract.
Did he violate the contract?
I don't know, I haven't read the contract.
Is there a clause in the contract that you could arguably say he violated?
Of course there is, there always is, right?
And then you go to court and you drag it out for a decade until Kanye's broke,
he's an idiot, he's gonna bankrupt himself anyway.
You don't pay him the billion dollars, what are you nuts?
You go to court, you do what Trump does the smart thing
to do in business is to not pay your debts, okay?
So yeah, and then can you cry like crazy, Adida sucks and
he'll create more reasons why you could win the lawsuit, right?
When he eventually sues you for that money, by the way, Kanye's theoretically
worth $2 billion according to Forbes, I never believe it because he said he was
broke just a couple of years ago and was begging Mark Zuckerberg for money, but
one of the two billion is based on this Adidas contract.
So if you take it away, is it gonna hurt him?
Yeah, it's gonna hurt him real bad.
And this isn't what drives me crazy about the Anti-Semitism is,
it's a no win, it's a catch 22, you say the Jews run the media and
then people get pissed and because it's terrible bigotry, and
they take away your contracts, you go high you see.
No, I'm not a high you see, any decent person would take away your contract,
it doesn't matter if you're saying this awful things about Jews, Muslims,
blacks, Latinos, you name it, right?
It shouldn't matter, it often doesn't matter, and so for God's sake,
do the right thing already, not Kanye, he's hopeless and he's lost darn Adidas.