Michigan Senate candidate’s adviser supported Farrakhan

Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: MEMRI

(JNS) — One of Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-Mich.) Senate campaign advisers has in the past expressed support for antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Slotkin is Jewish. 

On Feb. 29, 2017, Terra DeFoe shared photographs of herself at the Nation of Islam’s “Savior’s Day Convention” including two of her on a giant screen, addressing the gathering.

“Its [sic] been a full week supporting the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan,” DeFoe wrote. 

Another of the photos featured DeFoe smiling as she stood next to Farrakhan, who said on Feb. 28 that Israel would no longer exist and defended suicide bombers.

“The whole world right now is enslaved — and America is the greatest enslaved nation — by the synagogue of Satan,” Farrakhan said, invoking a common antisemitic trope drawn from the Book of Revelation.

In 2019, DeFoe welcomed Tony Muhammad — who has emerged as one of the antisemitic group’s more prominent spokesmen and carries the title “State Representative for Minister Louis Farrakhan and Minister of Muhammad Mosque No. 1” — onto her talk show. Muhammad has worked in recent years to integrate the NOI into the broader anti-vaccine pseudoscience movement, appearing with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a March 2021 webinar.

In the period from July 2023 through March 2024, Slotkin’s campaign employed DeFoe as Deputy Political Director, paying her almost $60,000 for a range of services.

The Slotkin campaign had not offered a response by time of print.