Danny Davis & Louis Farrakhan: Congressman Talks Friendship

Danny Davis (D., Ill.) described his longstanding personal relationship with Louis Farrakhan and dismissed questions about the Nation of Islam leader’s history of racist and anti-semitic comments in a Sunday interview.

“I’m a pretty global individual. So I know Farrakhan, I know the Middle East question, I know the Jews and Farrakhan — I know all that, but that’s not what I spend all my time focused on,” Davis told the Daily Caller. “I know Farrakhan, been knowing him for years and years and years and years and years, and every once in a while some writer or somebody will I guess try to think of something to say about Farrakhan, but nah, my world is so much bigger than any of that. I don’t have time for that. I deal with it, you know, when it comes but nah, that’s not a real part of my focus.”

“That’s just one segment of what goes on in our world. The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth. For those heavy into it, that’s their thing, but it ain’t my thing,” he said.

Davis told the Daily Caller in early February that he believes Farrakhan – an avowed anti-semite and racist – is an “outstanding human being.”

When contacted about his characterization of Farrakhan, Davis’ office told the Anti-Defamation League he had been misquoted.

Davis, who represents Illinois’ seventh district and is a former Chicago alderman, conceded Sunday that he was quoted accurately, and suggested someone in his office may have mistakenly said otherwise.

Farrakhan’s hatred was most recently on display this week during a Saviours’ Day 2018 address in Chicago, in which he railed against “the powerful Jews” and said, “White folks are going down.”

Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), who serves as the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee and is a former Nation of Islam member, was also criticized for his association with Farrakhan after reports emerged indicating the pair attended the same dinner in 2013.