Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan offered cautious praise for President Donald Trump in an interview with a Chicago radio station earlier this month — though he still warned that the president is leading the country to “hell on a rocket ship.”
Farrakhan was interviewed in studio by Chicago-area radio station WGCI 107.5, which has a predominantly African-American audience.
Asked to react to claims that Trump has done more for black people than Barack Obama’s administration, Farrakhan gave a surprising answer.
“The nature of this administration is good for us,” he said, even if “that wasn’t the intent.”
He explained further:
Because of Trump’s way, he is an anomaly. THere’s never been no president quite like Mr. Trump. But there’s something that he’s doing … where Trump is destroying every enemy that was an enemy of our rise. Who’s the enemy of our rise? Is it the Department of Justice, where we get none? Is it Congress, where you make a law that favors us, and then you turn around and destroy it? Is it the media that has destroyed every black leader that stood up for us, calling us out of our name? Martin Luther King suffered it. Malcolm [X] suffered it. [W.E.B.] Du Bois suffered it. Marcus Garvey suffered it. So he’s attacking the media, calls it “fake news.” Well, I don’t think everything is fake, but I know very well that we have been the victims of some fake news. He’s beating up the FBI! (claps) Go at it, baby! Because they’ve been beating the hell out of us, ever since J. Edgar Hoover and the counter-intelligence program of the U.S. government. So go ahead, Mr. Trump!
Farrakhan warned, however, that Trump’s “bullying” approach to the rest of the world would hurt America and cause “Armageddon.”
Video from 7:37 to 10:50 below:
Later in the interview, Farrakhan was asked to defend himself against claims of antisemitism. He tried to distinguish between “righteous” Jews and those who used their skills and talents for evil.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.