Chris Cuomo Says Dave Chappelle ‘Should Tell You That He Converted To Islam’ Before Making Jokes About Israel

NewsNation host Chris Cuomo criticized comedian Dave Chappelle for making a joke about Israel during a stand-up comedy special on Tuesday, arguing that Chappelle should inform viewers “he converted to Islam” before making such jokes.

Ranting about Chappelle’s recent Netflix comedy special – which ended with the comedian making a joke about Israel and dropping his microphone – Cuomo complained that many of the issues Chappelle joked about were “absolutely no laughing matter, and depending on your perspective, a lot of this special probably was not funny.”

Cuomo criticized Chappelle for making transgender jokes in Saudi Arabia, “a society that is notoriously repressive,” before targeting the comedian’s Muslim faith and accusing him of “spreading anti-Semitism.”

Reacting to Chappelle’s mic-drop joke about Israel, Cuomo said:

I believe that he should have picked the mic right back up because it was a terrible way to end. You could never say, “I stand with Israel,” because you’d never believe that? Because you’d never see any value in supporting the existence and survival of a state and a people that is surrounded by people that want their destruction and act on that on a regular, if not cyclical, basis? I don’t think it’s funny, and as someone who begged us to believe he does not wish ill to trans or other people that he jokes at or targets, he should be more aware of spreading anti-Semitism, especially now. And he probably should tell you that he converted to Islam going on 20 years ago.

I think it’s probably relevant for him. Why? We have to learn that there’s a huge difference between being Muslim and caring about Islam and being an extreme Islamist, okay? And I cannot judge from Dave Chappelle’s behavior how devout a Muslim he is. I mean, he’s walking around smoking and drinking. I mean, I’m not saying he lives it to the letter, right? But his understanding of the faith clearly affects his politics.

Cuomo and his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, have both been accused of making Islamophobic comments over the years.

The NewsNation host received criticism in 2014 after he suggested that Muslims were “unusually violent” and “barbaric.”

“The Muslim world is responsible for a really big part of religious extremism right now, and they are unusually violent, they’re unusually barbaric in the places where it’s happening,” said Cuomo at the time. “And it’s happening there more than it is in other places. Do you therefore want to generalize? Of course not. But you do want to call a situation what it is.”

He continued, “It’s not a coincidence that ISIS begins with an ‘I’. I mean, that’s what’s going on in that part of the world.”

Watch above via NewsNation.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!