In recent days, former President Donald Trump has been ripped by the media – both conservative and liberal – for hosting two celebrities (Rapper Ye, aka Kanye West; and white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes) who have both been linked with antisemitic comments of late. Criticism has also come from Mike Pence, Trump's former vice president; and from Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to return soon as that nation's prime minister.
However, little has been reported about Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock's (D) past association with a confirmed antisemite.
Warnock, who is locked in a runoff battle for his seat with former football great Herschel Walker, served as youth pastor and then assistant pastor at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City from 1991 to 2001. During those years, the African-American congregation frequently welcomed Leonard Jeffries, a professor at City University of New York who was kicked out of the college for his antisemitic and black supremacist curriculum.
Gary Bauer of American Values says that's the kind of "guilt by association" that would spell the end of a Republican's political career – but has raised nary a whisper from the pro-Democratic media.
"Sadly, like so many things that ought to be pretty clear-cut, they are being weaponized to be used only against conservatives," he tells AFN.
According to Bauer, Warnock has not merely "been around" antisemitism, he's been a purveyor of it. "Unfortunately, he has a record on a number of occasions of not speaking up [against], not dissenting – but, in fact, appearing to welcome – raw antisemitism," he states.
In fact, as Fox News points out, Warnock has come under fire for praising Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has referred to Jews as "wicked," "satanic," and "termites." During a speech in 2013, Warnock described Farrakhan as an "important" voice for black Americans.
Bauer tells AFN he has detected an unfortunate toleration of antisemitism on the political Left, particularly among black liberals. He recalls that in 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama and "virtually all of the membership of the Congressional Black Caucus" met with Farrakhan behind closed doors. In 2018, Photojournalist Askia Muhammad released a photo from that gathering that he said the Congressional Black Caucus pressured him to bury.
